A new report shows hundreds of vulnerable children in England have been stripped of stability and comfort by being placed in illegal homes.
Published today (16th January), a new report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found almost 800 children were living in unregistered accommodation in September 2024.
Currently, it is illegal to run a children’s home or supported accommodation in England without registering it with Ofsted. These facilities are not subject to routine inspections, meaning there are fewer safeguards to ensure children are receiving the care they need.
Councils are only supposed to use such homes as a last resort, such as when no registered places are available. However, evidence from the Children’s Commissioner, cited in the report, shows children placed in illegal homes in 2024 stayed for an average of six months.
Similarly, the report also highlights that over 1,200 children were placed in care without giving their consent in December 2024.
Another area of concern is the distance children are placed for their families – 49% of children in care in were living 20 miles away from their family homes.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the PAC, said: ‘The stated purpose of the children’s social care system is to provide care for those who need it so that they grow up and thrive with safety, stability and love.
‘For the hundreds of children highlighted in our report living for months in illegally unregistered homes, a lack of oversight means we cannot know whether their circumstances are indeed safe, stable or loving. A dysfunctional system is forcing local authorities to routinely reach for solutions which will see our nation’s children regularly put at risk.’
Against this backdrop, MPs are calling on the DfE to ‘reaffirm its commitment to reducing the number of children in unregistered homes to zero by the end of 2027 and set out the specific actions it will take to do so’.
However, ministers have told the committee they think it will take at least two years for improvements to take effect and address the shortage of placements.
A shortage of care home places has sent costs soaring. The report found spending on children’s residential care in England has almost doubled over the past five years, reaching £3.1bn in 2023/24. MPs described a ‘dysfunctional market’ in which councils compete with one another for placements, pushing prices higher.
Data from the Competition and Markets Authority shows in 2022, the 15 largest providers of children’s social care made average profits of 22.6% from children’s homes. Seven of the ten biggest providers are owned by private equity firms, which MPs say reduces transparency.
‘The oversight of the children’s social care system is similarly fraught, with the government not possessing clear line of sight into the financial circumstances of the majority of providers,’ Brown continued.
‘Without a good understanding of the motivations, debt, and potentially excessive profits of private providers, government cannot effectively oversee a market with players within it who could very well be over-leveraged with debt.
‘Our most vulnerable children are a sector of our society often without the ability to easily make their voices heard, but it is clear from our Committee’s scrutiny that they are currently being failed.’
Image: Trym Nilsen
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