Care proceedings are being completed more quickly in England and Wales, but their average duration still far exceeds the 26-week statutory target, official figures have shown.

Cases where councils applied for a care or supervision orders that were completed in April to June 2024 took an average of 41.2 weeks, down from a recent high of 44.8 weeks in January to March 2023, when just a quarter of cases were disposed of within 26 weeks.

This figure has risen since but, as of April to June 2024, just over two-thirds of cases (68%) exceeded the statutory limit, according to the Ministry of Justice’s latest quarterly statistics on the family courts system.

The data also showed the number of applications for High Court orders to deprive children of their liberty – often in unregistered placements – were far outstripping those for orders to place children in secure homes in 2024, with the latter having declined significantly since 2021.

Progress against the 26-week target

The Children and Families Act 2014 introduced the 26-week limit for courts to dispose of applications for care or supervision orders, in order to provide certainty for children. While courts may extend the timetable, this should not be routine, and they must consider the impact on the welfare of the child in doing so.

Case durations fell following the introduction of the law, reaching 26.2 weeks on average for those completed in October to December 2016.

However, they then rose steadily on the back of a spike in application numbers from 2016-18 before increasingly sharply during the pandemic as the family courts struggled to progress cases.

Relaunch of public law outline to tackle length of proceedings

In January 2023, the president of the family division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane, “relaunched” the public law outline (the PLO), the procedures governing care proceedings, to tackle the duration of proceedings.

This involved minimising the use of experts witnesses, keeping the number of hearings to three per case and limiting the court’s decision-making to whether the care or supervision order threshold was met, permanence provisions, contact arrangements and final orders.

Since then, average case lengths have fallen steadily. However, they remain far off the 26-week target, as the MoJ figures show.

‘Unacceptable backlogs’ remain

At the end of July 2024, Sir Andrew acknowledged that progress had been made but said that it had been “slow”, and that “unacceptable backlogs” remained.

Sir Andrew said he planned to “reinvigorate” the PLO relaunch this autumn, including through setting targets for improvement.

Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the family division of the High Court

These would include improving the use of the issues resolution hearing (IRH), the second hearing in a case. IRHs are designed to identify and narrow remaining issues in the case and, potentially, resolve them, avoiding the need for a final hearing.

The president said he had been told that, in some areas, less than 5% of cases were resolved, or substantially resolved, at the IRH, “with the result that 95% of cases go on to a final hearing which may be listed many months hence”.

He linked this to judges sometimes having four or five IRHs listed in a single day, preventing them from focusing on individual cases.

Squeezing issues resolution hearings ‘a totally false economy’

“To undertake an IRH, a judge must be given sufficient time to prepare the case as if preparing for the final hearing and the listing should be sufficient to accommodate the hearing of short evidence if required,” he added.

“Not to allocate time at the IRH stage is a totally false economy given the delay that will then follow, no doubt with further hearings, and the listing of a much longer final hearing in due course if the case remains contested.”

Sir Andrew added that some court areas may be “struggling to achieve the change of local culture that is required by the PLO relaunch”.

Targets for speeding up proceedings

In April this year, the Family Justice Board, the partnership of government, council leaders, Cafcass and the judiciary that oversees the system, set the following targets for speeding up proceedings by 31 March 2025:

• No open public law case should be taking longer than 100 weeks.
• Care and supervision cases should be taking an average of 32 weeks.
• At least 81% of all new cases should be completed within 26 weeks.

In response to the MoJ data, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services said progress towards the 26-week target likely reflected the impact of the PLO relaunch and improved pre-proceedings work by councils, among other factors.

The chair of the ADCS’s families, communities and young people policy committee, Helen Lincoln, added: “Reducing unnecessary drift and delay in the system is important, however, our main aim should always be meeting children’s needs, even if this falls outside the 26-week limit.”

DoL order applications far outstripping those for secure orders

The MoJ figures also revealed there had been five times as many applications to deprive children of their liberty under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction (590) as there had been applications for a secure accommodation orders (109) in the first half of 2024.

Deprivation of liberty orders, previously rare, have become commonplace in recent years as councils have struggled to find appropriate placements for children with very complex needs.

However, they often involve placements in unregistered settings – which are not monitored by Ofsted – though in such cases the court usually requires the provider to register the service rapidly.

Lack of secure children’s homes

One of the reasons cited for the rise of DoL orders has been the severe shortage of capacity in secure children’s homes, whose functions include accommodating children under secure orders. These are for children with a history of absconding who are likely to suffer significant harm if they abscond again.

The number of children accommodated in SCHs in England and Wales on secure orders fell from 96 to 72 from 2018-24, according to official data.

This is despite the number of available places in homes being relatively stable during that time, numbering 220 in both 2018 and 2024, with about 105 places contracted to the MoJ for use for young people who have committed offences, during this time.

‘Demand far outstrips supply’ of children’s home beds

The MoJ family courts data revealed a significant drop in the number of secure orders applied for by councils in recent years, from 404 in 2021 to 319 in 2023. Were current application rates to be maintained in 2024, the yearly total would be about 218.

For ADCS, Lincoln said: “Secure children’s homes offer intensive support to our most vulnerable children and young people at times of extreme crisis or distress, but many local authorities report major difficulties sourcing a placement.

“Demand for a bed far outstrips supply, despite local authorities only making a handful of placements a year which may be a reason for the decline in the number of applications being made.”

She added that applications for DoL orders were always a “last resort” to “manage complex mental health presentation and high-risk behaviours” due to lack of secure beds and inpatient mental health provision for young people.

Children placed in ‘illegal’ provision

The MoJ figures also showed that, of DoL applications made in July to September 2023, final orders had been made in 269 cases. Of these, 67 children were still subject to an order over a year after their first order was made, a point highlighted by sector research body the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.

Its director, Lisa Harker, said: “Deprivation of liberty orders were only ever meant to be a last resort used, for example, when a place in a secure children’s home was not available for a child a risk of imminent harm. Now they vastly outnumber applications for registered secure accommodation.

“Around half of children on deprivation of liberty orders are being placed in unregulated (and illegal) provision – and this latest data shows for the first time that children are often trapped in these placements, with a quarter still subject to a DoL order 12 months later.”

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has found an additional £165m for building and maintaining open and secure children’s homes as part of a public sector productivity drive announced in today’s Spring Budget.

The government has also pledged to bring forward measures later this year to tackle “profiteering” in the children’s residential sector.

The money announced by Hunt comprises £45m in match funding for local authorities to build homes providing an additional 200 placements, and £120m for maintaining the children’s secure home network and rebuilding two of these homes: Atkinson in Devon and Swanwick Lodge in Hampshire. The funding will cover the next four years.

The funding is in addition to the £259m in capital funding the government had previously allocated from 2022-25 to resource additional placements in open and secure homes.

‘Too many children in unregistered placements’ – Hunt

Announcing the extra money, Hunt said that “too many children in care end up being looked after by unregistered providers that are much more expensive”.

The Treasury’s report on the Budget said the extra capacity created by the new investment would “reduce local government reliance on costly emergency provision and improve outcomes for children by providing them with more suitable placements”.

It added: “The government will also be developing proposals on what more can be done to combat profiteering, bring down costs and create a more sustainable market for residential placements which it will publish later this year.”

Larger providers ‘making higher than expected profits’

The pledge comes two years after the Competition and Markets Authority concluded that profits in the largest private children’s home and fostering providers were higher than would be expected in a well-functioning market, with average margins of 22.6% in residential care from 2016-20.

However, it rejected the case for caps on profits or prices, on the grounds that these would reduce incentives for providers to invest in services and reduce capacity further.

Instead, it called for national and regional bodies to be created to help councils get better value from their commissioning of placements, an idea incorporated into the Department for Education’s children’s social care strategy 

DfE’s existing plans to curb placement costs

The strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love, also envisaged that building more children’s homes and recruiting more foster carers would boost the supply of placements, thereby reducing costs and profit levels.

But its key measure for tackling excess profits was the creation of ‘regional care co-operatives’ (RCCs), as recommended by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, to take responsibility for care commissioning from individual councils.

According to the DfE, RCCs would bear down on excessive profits by improving placement planning, making the costs of care more transparent and giving local authorities, collectively, more clout in their negotiations with providers.

However, council leaders have expressed scepticism at the potential for RCCs to address pressures on the placement market, and have urged further action on profit levels, which the government appears to have heeded with today’s announcement.

Directors welcome pledge to tackle ‘profiteering’

In response, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services welcomed the action announced by Hunt “to address the substantial challenges we face in children’s residential care”.

“We are particularly pleased that the government has committed to developing proposals aimed at tackling profiteering in the children’s placements system and to prevent scarce funds being diverted away from vulnerable children, and the public purse, to shareholders,” said ADCS president John Pearce.

“The additional investment to upgrade the existing secure children’s home estate and to rebuild two secure children’s homes as well as some additional capital funding for new residential provision and investment for special free schools is welcome.”

However, Pearce added that there was an “urgent need for government action to ensure there are enough high-quality placements for children in care”, which would require “further substantial funding”.

Extra funding ‘a tiny fraction of what is needed’

This point was echoed by provider body the Children’s Home Association (CHA). Its chief executive, Mark Kerr, said the £45m for open children’s homes was “a tiny fraction” of that needed to address “the sufficiency crisis that is currently preventing children from receiving the care they desperately need”.

Kerr added that, as the money could only be used for capital projects – building or rebuilding homes – it “provides no solution to the acute workforce challenge in children’s social care”.

“It is vital to note that many children’s homes projects aiming to increase provision, including those from previous funding rounds, remain unprogressed due to the inability to staff them,” he added.

However, he said the association was committed to working with the DfE and councils “to develop long-term solutions based on a holistic understanding of the sector”.

Drivers of increased costs

Data shows that the costs of residential care have increased significantly in recent year.

While the number of registered places in homes rose by 11% from 2016-22 (source: Ofsted), council spending on private providers – who run the vast majority – grew by 105% over this period (source: Revolution Consulting).

Last November, Pearce warned that councils faced insolvency without rules to curb the mounting costs of care placements. These have been driven by factors including:

• Fifteen consecutive year-on-year rises in the care population.
• More and more children with complex needs going into care and requiring more intensive provision, such as solo placements, high staff ratios or, increasingly, deprivation of their liberty.
• Reductions in the numbers of secure children’s home and inpatient mental health beds, removing alternative options for these children.
• A fall in the number of mainstream fostering households.
• A mismatch between the location of children’s homes and areas of need.

“Getting the basics right” around social work has been key to year-on-year improvements in council performance in children’s services, an Ofsted leader has said.

Yvette Stanley’s comments came as the inspectorate’s latest annual report showed 60% of the 153 English authorities were rated good or outstanding for children’s services as of September this year.

This is a rise from 56% at the same time in 2022, 51% in 2021 and 50% in 2020.

Performance under the current inspection of local authority children’s services (ILACS) framework is also significantly better than under the previous single inspection framework (SIF), which was in place up to the end of 2017. Just 36% of authorities were rated good or outstanding after their first SIF inspection.

‘Getting the basics right’ key to improvement

In its report, Ofsted said there was “no one reason” for councils’ improved performance but said it had seen authorities “investing in strengths-based models of social work with families” and “setting clear direction for their social work teams”.

Expanding on these points, Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for social care, attributed the progress to “stable leadership, a clear practice model that keeps children front and centre and creating the right environment for social workers to do their best work, the importance of manageable caseloads, and the support around social workers – the administrative systems – so they can spend more time doing direct work with children”.

“It’s about getting the basics right,” she added. “We’ve seen significant improvements in those areas.”

New care leaver judgment

This year also saw the introduction of a separate judgment in relation to councils’ services for care leavers, which has been decoupled from a previous joint category encompassing looked-after children’s provision.

Of the 26 authorities rated on the measure, 57% were rated good or outstanding, with 13 having a different grade from their performance for children in care.

Photo: Valerii Honcharuk/Adobe Stock

“These differences in quality were less visible under the previous combined judgement, Ofsted said. “We are now more easily able to highlight good and poor practice for these distinct groups and make more targeted recommendations.”

Councils’ overall progress comes despite a hugely challenging backdrop for children’s social care, which was highlighted in the report.

Rising social work vacancy and agency rates

The council children’s social worker vacancy rate rose from 16.7% to 20%, and the agency staff rate from 15.5% to 17.6%, in the year to September 2022, following years of relative stability.

Source: Department for Education children’s social work workforce census, 2022

Ofsted said there was an “overreliance on agency social workers which undermines the consistency of the support that children experience”.

The Department for Education (DfE) is planning to introduce national rules to reduce councils’ use of agency social workers in children’s services, however, it has diluted its original plans following a consultation.

Placement shortage amid rising care population

The inspectorate also flagged up the ongoing challenges councils faced in securing sufficient appropriate care placements, in the context of a 15th year of rising numbers of looked-after children.

As it reported earlier this month, the number of mainstream fostering households shrank for a second consecutive year in 2022-23.

And while the number of registered children’s home places rose by 5% in 2022-23, following a 4% increase in 2021-22, Ofsted said that the location of new homes did not match children’s needs.

“Homes continue to open disproportionately in the regions where numbers are already the highest,” said the annual report. “The North West accounts for a quarter of all children’s homes and almost a quarter of all places.”

Illegal use of unregistered homes

The shortage of placements was leading to some children being placed in unregistered children’s homes, which are illegal.

As has been well-documented, these have been used for the rapidly-rising number of children who need to be deprived of their liberty but who cannot be placed in secure children’s homes, for which 50 children are waiting for each place at any one time.

But Ofsted said unregistered placements were also used as a “stop-gap” for other children who could not be placed elsewhere.

“Although these homes are often a last resort and intended to be temporary, the national shortage of placements for children with complex needs means some particularly vulnerable children live in these settings for long periods,” it said.

It said it completed 530 investigations into possible unregistered homes during 2022-23, in most cases after being notified by the placing local authority.

In 370 cases (70%), the home should have been registered, resulting in Ofsted sending the provider a warning letter. In most of these cases, the home then stopped operating.

Concerns about solo placements

Ofsted also found that an increasing number of homes were operating below capacity. In some cases, this was because councils were commissioning solo placements – because of the complexity of a child’s needs – and in others, it was due to homes struggling to recruit staff.

Photo: Presidentk52/Fotolia

While it said solo placements were right for some children, Ofsted added that it was “concerned at the continuing rise in children living alone and with very high staffing numbers”.

On staffing, it said 35% of care staff in children’s homes left their posts during 2022-23 – the same proportion as in 2021-22 – reducing young people’s chances of “building the relationships that are important for [their] wellbeing and sense of belonging”.

Fall in proportion of qualified staff

Providers and councils reported that staff in roles that required few or no qualifications were moving to better-paid jobs in other industries, while more qualified workers were moving into higher-paid agency roles.

Half of children’s homes staff held a required level 3 qualification (54%), down from 61% four years ago.

And while the proportion of registered children’s home managers holding the mandatory level 5 qualification has increased from 50% to 64% since 2018-19, 12% of homes did not have a manager in place as of the end of 2022-23.

“This leaves a significant gap in oversight of what is happening for children,” the report added.

Impact of ending unregulated provision

Council leaders have also raised concerns that the introduction of regulation of semi-independent settings for 16- and 17-year-olds – now renamed ‘supported accommodation – will worsen the sufficiency problem.

Councils’ use of such placements has grown significantly over the past two years. However, providers were only expected to register four out of every five semi-beds they previously operated with Ofsted, found a report published in July by the County Councils Network (CCN) and London Innovation and Improvement Alliance.

(credit: caracoot / Adobe Stock)

Ofsted said that, as of the deadline of 28 October, 2023, 680 providers, operating 5,930 settings, had been registered or had applied to do so.

It also received 43% more applications to register children’s homes in 2022-23 compared with 2021-22 (630, up from 440) and suggested some of these may have been from former semi-independent settings.

“Extending regulation to all provision means that existing providers are deciding whether to register children’s homes or as a supported accommodation provider,” Ofsted added.

Targeted early help concerns

Outside of care placements, Ofsted’s annual report also raised concerns about targeted early help services, based on thematic inspections carried out with fellow inspectorates earlier this year and at the end of 2022.

While it found “well-trained and knowledgeable early help workers undertaking effective work”, Ofsted added that in some areas lead professionals lacked the skills and knowledge required for the risks the children they worked with faced.

Stanley told Community Care: “We are seeing very little early help in some areas. That’s sadly leaving families in the preventative space losing out.”

The annual report comes with the DfE planning a raft of reforms to children’s social care, including to improve the sufficiency of care placements and the quality and capacity of family support.

Children’s social care reforms

In regard to the latter, the department is testing bringing together targeted early help and child in need services into a single family help service. This will involve, among other things, enabling non-social work staff to carry child in need cases, which is currently prohibited by the Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance.

Ofsted has previously raised concerns about this change potentially increasing risks to children.

“We see benefits in a system that brings targeted early help and child in need work together,” Ofsted said in its annual report. “Managing risk carefully and making sure that the system does not become overwhelmed will require careful work and good oversight, especially given that the workforce is already stretched.”

Secure children’s home bed numbers have fallen over the last year despite huge levels of need for placements for very vulnerable children, Department for Education data shows.

The number of approved places in England and Wales’s 14 homes dropped by 7.6%, from 249 to 230 in the year to March 2023, with just 203 of these available for use, down from 220 the year before.

The number of places contracted to the Ministry of Justice to place children detained by the criminal justice system remained stable, at 105, meaning the drop in capacity fell entirely on councils looking to place children on welfare grounds or, more rarely, on remand.

While capacity shrank, there was an even sharper fall, from 165 to 139 (15.8%) in the number of children placed in secure homes, with 74 children detained on welfare grounds, down from 82 to year before. Overall occupancy levels were 60% of approved places, down from 72% in 2020.

The figures come despite chronically high demand for welfare placements for children on secure accommodation orders, who typically have severe and complex needs such as self-harm, suicidal ideation or high risk of exploitation.

Sharp rise in deprivation of liberty orders

Last year, Ofsted reported that 50 children were waiting for a secure welfare bed each day while the head of the family courts, Sir Andrew McFarlane, put the figure at 60-70 earlier this year.

This was in the latest in a series of rulings in which judges have lambasted the lack of secure provision in cases where councils have come before them seeking so-called deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders, under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction.

These orders are often used in lieu of secure accommodation orders where there is no bed in a secure home, and their number has skyrocketed in recent years, from an estimated 103 in 2017-18 to a predicted 1,300 in the year to July 2023.

In many such cases, young people are placed in unregistered – and hence, unlawful – children’s homes. The Supreme Court has ruled that such placements are permissible on a short-term basis in “imperative considerations of necessity” and where there is no alternative available.

Reasons for failure to fill secure beds

Reasons for the failure to fill available secure beds were explored last year in a report by What Works for Early Intervention and Children’s Social Care. 

These included a lack of sufficiently skilled staff, the failure to adapt homes to the increasing severity of children’s needs and insufficient co-ordination in commissioning placements between councils, the youth custody service (YCS) and the NHS.

Lisa Harker, director of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (NFJO), which monitors, and collects data, on the use of DoL orders, said: “A growing body of evidence shows that these children have often experienced childhood trauma, such as exposure to neglect, abuse, family dysfunction, violence, bereavement, abandonment and loss.

“Sometimes secure children’s homes refuse to take a child, despite having a place, because they are unable to meet their level of needs. The fall in the occupancy rate reflects this problem.”

“These latest figures underline the urgent need for a national response to the significant number of children with high needs and in complex circumstances for whom current provision is so clearly inadequate.”

Government plan to boost placement numbers

The Department for Education (DfE) intends to create 50 new places in secure homes, including in London and the West Midlands, where there is currently no provision, as part of a £259m investment in residential childcare from 2022-25.

It also aims to upgrade existing homes to improve occupancy levels and to promote more integrated commissioning of placements by councils, the YCS and NHS.

In response to the secure care figures, a DfE spokesperson said: “We are investing £259m to maintain capacity and expand provision in both secure and open children’s homes in all nine regions of England to make sure all children have the support and protection they need.

“We are committed to working with the judiciary, Ministry of Justice and other partners on improving outcomes for vulnerable children and maintaining the right level of children’s social care placements.”

Social Work Recap is a weekly series where we present key news, events, conversations, tweets and campaigns around social work from the preceding week.

From the missed opportunities that led to devastating first few months of the pandemic for social care to the true cost of the shortage in secure accommodation for children with complex needs, here’s what you might have missed this week in social work:

Unaddressed weaknesses left social care ill-prepared for Covid, study finds

(credit: dontree / Adobe Stock)

The government missed opportunities to prepare the social care sector for a pandemic in the years before Covid, a review has found.

The two-year study, led by the Nuffield Trust and the London School of Economics, concluded that a lack of representation in government, along with poor funding, workforce conditions and infrastructure, the immense challenges social care faced in responding to the pandemic.

This saw 20,000 care home residents die in the first three months of the pandemic, inadequate access to personal protective equipment and many people left without adequate support due to the lockdown-induced closure of services.

The sector was excluded from cross-government pandemic-planning testing and, even after exercises that did include the sector identified some issues, no action was taken, the study found.

“The fragmented nature of the system and a shortage of civil servants working on social care contributed to confusion over who was responsible for decisions and implementation in the Covid-19 response,” said the review report.

“Had the sector had the tools it needed then some of the confusion and delays that led to so much distress and heartbreak could have been avoided,” Natasha Curry, the study’s co-lead and the Nuffield Trust’s deputy director of policy, told The Guardian.

PAs’ high caseloads leaving care leavers without emotional support, says report

Photo: motortion/Adobe Stock

Personal advisers’ (PAs) high caseloads are reducing their ability to provide emotional support for carers, a study has concluded.

Support for care leavers’ emotional wellbeing also varied widely across the five English councils studied, found the research by What Works for Early Intervention and Children’s Social Care.

None of the local authorities collected data to monitor the support they provided, amid a wider lack of evidence on the effectiveness of mental health support for care leavers

Care leavers’ access to wellbeing support was hindered by high thresholds for acceptance, practical barriers, such as the location of services, and a lack of consideration for diversity, the care leaver experience and internalised stigma.

While PAs’ relationships with care leavers were critical to the support they received, the study found these were hampered by practitioners’ high caseloads.

In its recommendations, What Works called for PAs’ capacity to support care leavers to be increased, including through training and reduced caseloads.

It also urged the government to support councils to improve the diversity and consistency of the support they provided.

Must Listen: ‘Children locked away: Britain’s modern bedlam’

Photo by Tortoise

Vulnerable children with complex needs are waiting for months, or even years, for a  secure children’s home placement, an investigation has found.

News organisation Tortoise found that children waited an average of two and a half months for a secure bed, in the two years to March 2023.

Of the 50 authorities to respond to Tortoise’s freedom of information request, nine had average waits of at least six months.

Photo by Tortoise/NHS

Some councils told Tortoise that the wait was so long that they simply “gave up”.

The shortage of secure beds has forced councils to, increasingly, seek the High Court’s permission to place children in unregistered – and therefore illegal – settings through so-called deprivation of liberty orders. The Tortoise investigation, which is available as a podcast, found 40 councils were paying at least £10,000 a week for such accommodation for individual children.

The investigation was prompted by the recent case of a 12-year-old girl from Staffordshire, who had attempted to take her own life several times. Due to the severe shortage of secure accommodation in England, the girl, known as Becky, had been placed in isolation in a hospital room for eight weeks and fed through a hatch on the door.

Those supporting Becky had called the accommodation “unsuitable” and “actively damaging”.

Among two other stories explored in the podcast was that of Child X, the subject of a 2017 judgment concerning her need for a secure mental health bed after several suicide attempts. Six years on, aged 22, she is detained under the Mental Health Act in Rampton, one of the England and Wales’s three high security hospitals, found journalist Louise Tickle.

You can listen to the full episode here if you are a Tortoise member or, otherwise, wherever you get your podcasts.

Must Watch 1: Here I am – Leah

Children’s charity Bernardo’s has produced a thought-provoking and emotional short film based on the experiences of young people it supports.

The five-minute video puts the viewer in the shoes of Leah, a 14-year-old girl whose story encapsulates those of various vulnerable young people, and offers a glimpse into child sexual exploitation and how difficult it can be to turn to adults for help.

Must Watch 2: Kids – Channel 4

Photo by Channel 4

Channel 4’s new docuseries, Kids, offers viewers an unfiltered glimpse into the experiences of six young people in care in Coventry.

The first episode follows 19-year-old Annabelle and 17-year-old Xorin. Annabelle, who was pregnant during filming, said she was determined to “break the cycle of care” that saw her taken away from her parents when she was five.

Xorin, who had been exploited by a gang as a child, was seen transitioning back home after three years away and multiple placements.

The episode started with Kayleigh, a therapist from Coventry’s reunification project, making a  visit to Xorin’s mum, Kelly, to help with the transition. However, when interviewed, Kelly admitted that, after having a series of practitioners come in and out of her home over many years, trust was hard to establish.

“I need to see her say what she’s going to do before I trust her or even like her. I need to see people’s words meet their actions,” she added.

You can watch episode one here.

Tweet of the Week:

As a baby, I was abandoned and left to die. After hearing my cries, neighbours called the police. I recovered in hospital from malnutrition, dehydration.

1/5

— Fatima Whitbread (@FatimaWh1tbread) May 15, 2023

Former world javelin champion Fatima Whitbread will be running from 15 to 18 May in support of charity The Fostering Network’s ‘Foster Care Fortnight’, which aims to raise awareness for foster care and its impact on young people in need of a home.

In a series of tweets, Fatima shared her own story of being fostered and the motivation behind her support for the campaign.

Do you want to share your views and reflections on social work with fellow practitioners by writing for us? Check out our guidelines page for information on how to share your ideas.

The multiple and complex needs of children made the subject of deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders have been laid bare in an analysis published last week.

The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (Nuffield FJO) found that children had, on average, 4.2 of a set of 11 indicators of need or risk, including mental health issues, disability, self-harm or going missing.

But despite this many also faced multiple breakdowns of their care arrangements or were placed in unlawful unregistered accommodation.

The findings came in an analysis of the first two months of applications to a national DoL court set up in July 2022.

The court was established to handle a substantial increase in the number of applications, chiefly by councils, to deprive children of their liberty, for their own safety or that of others, using the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court.

The hike has been driven, in part, by a severe shortage of places in secure children’s homes, an issue highlighted last month in sharp terms by the president of the family division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane.

Multiple risks

The Nuffield FJO’s analysis of 208 children found 11 main areas of need or risk:  risk to others, going missing, self-harm, mental health concerns, neurodevelopmental disorders, disability, sexual
exploitation, criminal exploitation, substance misuse, placement breakdown and being out of education.

Children had up to eight areas of need, with two-thirds having four or more.

While the most prevalent issue was risk to others (69.2%), chiefly in relation to physical aggression, this was closely followed by mental health concerns (59.1%), placement breakdown (55.3%) self-harm (52.4%) and going missing (46.6%).

The observatory identified three groups within the sample of cases analysed:

• Children with learning and physical disabilities for whom the DoL was sought primarily due to a need to monitor and supervise the child to manage their care needs or to place restrictions on their liberty to manage challenging behaviours linked to their disability.
• Children who had often suffered complex and ongoing trauma and were considered very vulnerable due to overlapping risks and needs primarily related to mental health, self-harming and risk to others.
• Children experiencing or at risk of external or extrafamilial risk factors such as sexual or criminal exploitation, for whom the primary concern was to manage this risk, though these children often also had complex and ongoing trauma.

Unlawful placements

Despite their vulnerability, the children, as well as enduring high levels of placement breakdown, were at significant risk of being placed in unregistered settings.

This occurs when a provider is delivering care and accommodation to a young person but is not registered to do so with Ofsted, which is unlawful.

While 16.8% were in such settings prior to the DoL order, 45.6% were due to be placed in them following the order. This was particularly the case among those for whom the primary reasons for the DoL application were self-harm (62.5% of whom were due to move into an unregistered placement) or risk to others (54.5%).

In these cases, councils often work with providers to set up a bespoke service for the child because of the severe shortage of suitable placements nationally, whether in open or closed children’s homes. The courts will only authorise such unregistered placements in an emergency and if providers are taking steps to secure registration with Ofsted.

Top judge’s criticisms of lack of secure provision

In his judgment in the Re X case last month, Sir Andrew McFarlane excoriated the government and Parliament for a six-year failure to address judicial warnings about a chronic shortage that meant 60-70 children were waiting for a secure bed every day.

Separate Nuffield FJO figures have shown that applications for DoL orders now appear to be considerably higher than those for secure accommodation orders, the legal basis for a welfare placement in a secure home.

Between July and September 2022, there were 348 applications for to the national DoL court, compared with 46 for a secure order.

It predicted there would be 1,300 DoL applications in the first full year of the court, compared with an estimated 103 in 2017-18, according to a previous analysis by the observatory of Cafcass data.

‘Last resort’ has become routine measure

The Nuffield FJO said that, having been designed as a last resort, DoL orders were now being “routinely
requested by local authorities for children who have experienced years of trauma and instability in their lives”.

In response to the issue, the government intends to create 50 new places in secure homes as part of a £259m investment in residential childcare from 2022-25. The Department for Education (DfE) also plans to trial the establishment of regional care co-operatives (RCCs), groupings of local authorities that would take over the commissioning of care placements from individual councils, as part of its response to the care review.

In its draft children’s social care strategy, published earlier this month, it said RCCs would be “better equipped to provide more residential care homes for those children with the most complex needs”, through the pooling of resources and expertise.

However, both investment in new places and the introduction of RCCs would only bear fruit over the medium term. Nuffield FJO director Lisa Harker warned: “Improving provision for this group of children is an urgent necessity; it is not only about building new children’s homes for the future, it is about urgently meeting the needs of children today.

“It will require a nationwide strategy, with significant commitment at a local and national level, led by national government. We know that a wide range of professionals, including senior members of the judiciary, have been actively and consistently calling for action to address the gross lack of suitable provision.”

A leading judge has excoriated the government and Parliament for a six-year failure to address judicial warnings about a chronic shortage of secure care for children “in extreme crisis”.

However, Sir Andrew McFarlane has detected signs of hope in an apparent shift in Department for Education (DfE) thinking to accept its responsibility for filling a gap that has seen 60-70 children waiting for a secure bed each day.

Last week, the president of the family division of the High Court issued the latest in a string of judgments, dating back to 2017, in which judges have severely criticised the lack of places for children on secure accommodation orders.

Under section 25 of the Children Act 1989, such secure welfare placements may only be made if a child either has a history of absconding, would likely abscond from any other setting and, if they did so, would likely suffer significant harm; or would likely injure themselves or others if placed in any other setting.

The number of welfare placements in England and Wales’s 14 secure homes has declined from 105 in 2016 to 82 in 2022, during which time the overall occupancy rate – including criminal justice and remand placements – has fallen from 83% to 66%. However, research has found that the occupancy rate was a poor guide to capacity because children’s needs have grown more complex, meaning some require staffing resources equivalent to multiple beds.

Councils reliant on ‘inappropriate’ unregistered placements

In many cases, the shortage has forced judges to issue deprivation of liberty (“DOLS”) orders, using the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to prevent significant harm where no other legal option exists. These typically involve placement in unregistered settings, which Sir Andrew said were often, “at very significant additional cost”, “not appropriate to meet the young person’s needs” and simply chosen because there were no other options.

He said this was the case in relation to the subject of the judgment, X, a 15-year-old girl who had suffered significant trauma and adversity during her childhood, and was assessed as having low IQ and diagnosed with high-functioning autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Children ‘in extreme crisis’

Sir Andrew said that, for judges in the family court, the “extreme behaviour” demonstrated by X was not unusual, adding: “There is a
cohort of young people who are in extreme crisis to the same degree as X.”

While he said there were 60 to 70 children on a secure accommodation order who were waiting for a bed, this was likely to underestimate the scale of the problem as many councils will have applied to the High Court for a DOLS order.

Sir Andrew set up a specific DOLS court last year to manage these applications, with the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory contracted to monitor data on them. From July to November, 552 children were subject to DOLS applications, and the president said there may be over 1,000 applications during the whole year, about ten times the number in 2017-18.

In response to a direction to attend the first hearing before Sir Andrew in X’s case, in November 2022, the DfE had initially asked to be excused on grounds of cost. It sent a letter to the court stating that councils, not the department, were responsible for care placements and had a duty to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children, and that it was supporting them by committing £259m to increase open and secure children’s home capacity from 2022-25.

‘Complacency bordering on cynicism’

However, Sir Andrew insisted on a DfE representative attending the November hearing, in which the judge said that its stance, that the shortage of placements was “not its problem…displayed a level of complacency bordering on cynicism”.

“It was, I observed, shocking to see that the Department for Education seemed to be simply washing its hands of this chronic problem,” he added. “It must, I observed, surely be for central government to monitor and, if necessary, get a grip upon what is a long-standing national problem.”

Subsequently, on request, the DfE submitted a further statement, which acknowledged there were “significant problems with the availability of sufficient placements” – particularly for children with complex needs – that required action across government to help councils meet their statutory duties.

This included the £259m investment, which it said would create new secure children’s homes in London and the West Midlands, where there was currently no provision, as well as action to tackle gaps in NHS provision for children with complex needs and emotional and behavioural issues. It also pointed to the forthcoming DfE response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, highlighting its recommendation that 20 regional care co-operatives take over commissioning of children’s care placements, though without committing to a government view on this.

‘Most welcome’ statement from DfE

In the conclusion to his judgment, Sir Andrew said the “gross lack of secure accommodation” would not be effectively addressed “until urgent and effective action is taken by government and Parliament to discharge the obligation that is on the State to protect the country’s most vulnerable children”.

He said the “most welcome” statement from the DfE represented, “it would seem for the first time, an acceptance by the Secretary of State for Education that, nationally, there are significant problems with the availability of sufficient placements” that require government action to address.

Sir Andrew said he hoped it would result in action and that “the need for the court to hand down judgments of this nature will be a thing of the past”.

Situation ‘not sustainable for children or councils’

ADCS president Steve Crocker (credit: ADCS)

In response to the judgment, Association of Directors of Children’s Services president Steve Crocker also welcomed the DfE statement.

He added: “Many local authorities report major difficulties in sourcing a secure children’s home placement…In these instances, local authorities have no other option but to create a highly bespoke placement in the community with intensive wraparound support, while suitable alternatives are sought, costing tens of thousands of pounds per week and requiring court authorisation.  This is not a sustainable solution for children or local authorities.”

Crocker said he hoped the government’s response to the care review “will include meaningful solutions to the placement shortage crisis we are currently facing”.

Claire Coutinho (photo: HM Government)

In her response, children’s minister Claire Coutinho said the cases highlighted in the judgment emphasised “the urgent need for reform in the care system”, and that its response to the care review, and accompanying implementation plan, would be published “imminently”.

“It will be the first step towards implementing our long-term plan, which ensure all children have the support and protection they need, creating the stable and loving home that every child deserves,” she said. “I am committed to working with the judiciary and other partners on bettering outcomes for vulnerable children and ensuring we have robust early intervention and support, as well as the right level of children’s social care placements.”

The DfE said that the £259m in children’s homes would result in an about 50 additional secure places over the medium term.

Social worker shortages are making an already challenging job ‘unsustainable’ for some practitioners, Ofsted has warned in its annual report for 2021-22, published today.

The inspectorate said problems recruiting and retaining staff were arguably the biggest challenges facing children’s social care and one that had got worse since the pandemic.

It pointed to Department for Education figures showing 8.6% of full-time equivalent local authority and children’s trust social workers left the statutory sector altogether in the year to September 2021, up from 7.2% the previous year.

While the same figures showed that a further 2.6% had moved into agency work during the same period, up slightly on 2.2% the previous year, the inspectorate echoed findings from the Association of Directors of Children’s Services in saying this was a significant issue for authorities.

“Many social workers are moving into agency work, as this gives them greater flexibility and higher pay than local authorities can offer,” it said. “As a result, local authorities find they cannot recruit directly and are forced to turn to agencies at a higher cost.”

Agreed workloads for agency staff ‘reducing capacity’

The report also said agency workers often had agreed terms and conditions, including in relation to workloads, which, when combined with their additional expense to authorities, had the potential to lower departments’ headcount and capacity.

The inspectorate warned: “Staff shortages are creating significant challenges for the workers who do remain in the sector. Workloads are high and the demands of an already challenging job can become unsustainable.

Ofsted also joined directors in raising the issue of councils employing teams of agency staff, which it said was “distorting the workforce”. In July, ADCS president Steve Crocker called for social work agencies to be regulated or banned outright, citing in particular, the practice of agencies restricting the supply of staff to teams, rather than individual workers. Crocker said this was driving up prices and constituted “profiteering”.

Agency leaders have strongly pushed back against this charge, saying they made a strong contribution to the sector and that the ADCS should be working with them to deliver better value for the taxpayers while also improving pay and conditions for social workers and other care staff.

However, Crocker told Community Care recently that the Department for Education was preparing reforms to regulate agency social work in its response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which recommended such action. The response is due early in the new year.

Concerns over impact of remote social work

In its annual report, Ofsted also repeated previous concerns, including in relation to agency staff, about working arrangements that allowed practitioners to work far from home and spend relatively little time in their employer’s local area.

“Social workers can now choose to work for a higher salary, with a better work–life balance, for a local authority further away,” it said. “They therefore do not have the same local knowledge as staff based in the area.

“This can affect the quality of relationships with children and the sense of ownership about what is going on in the local area. Although staff may like working from home, local authorities should not underestimate the importance of face-to-face contact and access to support and advice from peers and managers.”

Workforce issues were also afflicting children’s homes, found the regulator, with high vacancy rates – particularly among managers – and turnover affecting quality of care.

Ofsted said vacancy rates for registered managers had risen from 9% to 14% in the three years to August 2022, while, at the same time, a third of home managers were new in post.

Meanwhile, in the year to March 2022, 35% of permanent children’s home staff left their posts, while 44% of permanent staff were newly hired.

Turnover ‘creating instability for children’

“This very high turnover creates instability for children in care, as it reduces the chances of building relationships, which are important for well-being, stability and belonging,” said the report.

Staff shortages, management turnover and a lack of skills among care workers were significant reasons for 9% (43) of the 480 children’s homes inspected for the first time during 2021-22 receiving an inadequate rating. While this percentage was in line with previous years, the number of homes receiving a first inspection was more than double annual totals in the past.

As of 31 August 2022, 81% of children’s homes were rated outstanding or good, up from 79% a year earlier.

As it has done in many previous reports, Ofsted raised significant concerns about the sufficiency of placements for children in care, particularly those with complex needs.

It said that in March this year, 50 children who posed a risk to themselves or others were waiting for a bed in a secure children’s home every day, double the number from the previous year.

Use of unregistered placements

Such children were often placed, illegally, in unregistered children’s homes, often under deprivation of liberty orders granted by the High Court, whose number have risen sharply in recent years. These orders are also used for children who do not meet the criteria for a secure accommodation order under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 or for detention under the Mental Health Act 1983.

Ofsted said it investigated 595 cases of possible unregistered accommodation in 2021-22 and found that 92% should have been registered. Most of these have since received warning letters.

While councils sometimes used unregistered provision because they needed accommodation immediately, Ofsted said placing children in unregistered provision could put them at risk of harm, because there was no regulatory oversight of the suitability and experience of the adults, the building or the arrangements.

Another factor in such placements, it said, was that providers were sometimes reluctant to take children who, for example, had been involved with crime or had been criminally exploited, for fear of being downgraded by Ofsted. This fear was cited by providers in response to the Children’s Homes Association’s regular “state of the sector” survey.

However, Ofsted said there was no link between ratings and the type of needs homes catered for, and that homes should be clear, in their statements of purpose, about which children they can care for.

It added: “The best homes do this well and can provide care to children with the most complex needs.”

The number of unregistered children’s homes identified by Ofsted more than doubled from 2020-21 to 2021-22, the regulator has revealed.

In in its annual children’s social care data report, published last week, Ofsted said it had found 292 settings that should have been registered as children’s homes following investigation in 2021-22, up from 136 in 2020-21. The 2020-21 figure was itself significantly up on the previous two years.

Number of settings found to be unregistered children’s homes by Ofsted (2018-19 and 2019-20 figures are approximate)

At the same time, the number of children waiting for a bed in England’s 13 secure children’s homes each day has doubled from 25 to 50, according to figures supplied to Ofsted by the Secure Welfare Coordination Unit, which administers placements.

Ofsted’s report also showed an increase in the number of children’s homes actively registered to provide one bed, from 106 to 164, between 2020-21 to 2021-22.

All three trends illustrate the scale of the pressures on councils to find placements for children who need secure or specialist care because of the complexity of their needs or the risks they face – for example, from exploitation.

462% rise in deprivation of liberty orders

The lack of beds for children who meet the criteria for a secure order under section 25 of the Children Act has forced councils to, increasingly, seek court orders to deprive of them of their liberty in other settings. These rely on the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to protect children where no statutory provision is available.

The number of such deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders – which are also sought for children who do not meet the section 25 criteria – rose by 462% from 2017-18 to 2020-21.

These often involve setting up bespoke placements that – because they provide accommodation with care – are legally required to be registered as a children’s home. The courts will only authorise such unregistered placements in an emergency and if providers are taking steps to secure registration with Ofsted.

The regulator said that most of the 292 settings it identified as unregistered homes in 2021-22 had been sent warning letters though some will have stopped operating.

More single-bedded homes

Single-bed children’s homes are also used as an alternative to secure care. The number of registered single-bed homes underestimates the number of children living in solo placements as it excludes those placed in larger homes where all other beds are empty.

Responding to the data, Association of Directors of Children’s Services vice president John Pearce said it illustrated the challenges local authorities faced in finding – often at short notice – secure placements for children “in extreme distress”.

He said there had been an increase in the number of children with substantial mental health needs in this group, which Pearce suggested may have been caused by reductions in tier 4 Camhs beds for children in the most acute need.

“Where a secure placement cannot be found or the young person’s needs are so severe they are unable to live with other children, a single bedded children’s home has become the only option,” he added.

However, he said that, while matching children and young people together in multi-bed homes was critical, “so is ensuring that children and young people have the opportunity to develop and nourish positive peer relationships as this is in their best interests”.

Concerns over smaller settings

Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for social care, voiced similar concerns about growing numbers of single-bed placements and vacancies in larger homes, at last week’s ADCS annual conference.

“We no doubt need smaller homes to meet the needs of children who need two or three to one support, a low sensory environment and who might struggle with the needs and behaviours of others,” she said.

However, she said she was worried about “perhaps creating too many single child homes, where some safeguards may be more difficult to deliver and where the loss of social interaction with peers in the longer term may cause different harm”.

Stanley also raised concerns about children’s homes carrying vacancies because of the “pursuit of the perfect match”, which was pushing up costs for local authorities.

‘A risk-averse approach’

She said some providers were concerned about the consequences for their inspection rating of taking children with particularly complex needs – despite inspectors’ focus being on how those needs are met.

“I am hearing more often of providers looking to move children of a particular need on, and local authorities competing financially for one empty place,” she told the ADCS conference. “The numbers and needs have increased, and yet we see places held vacant.”

She added: “We don’t want to see a risk-averse approach that leaves children with the most complex needs less likely to receive the kind of care they need.”

Stanley’s warnings about vacancies chime with the findings of a survey of providers, published last month by the Independent Children’s Home Association.

This found homes were prioritising good matching over occupancy, amid concerns over their ability to meet children’s increasingly complex needs, given the need to safeguard their other young people.

They also cited concerns about putting their Ofsted rating at risk, councils’ increasing requirement for solo-placement homes and a lack of suitable staff, which Stanley also referred to in her speech.

Mismatch of home locations and need

Meanwhile, a separate Ofsted report issued last week found a mismatch between the location of children’s homes, the provision they could offer, and children’s needs.

While a quarter of children’s homes were in the North West, and 19% in the West Midlands, councils from these regions were responsible for placing 19% and 12%, respectively, of children in homes, as of March 2020.

By contrast, London housed 5% of homes but the capital’s authorities placed 11% of children.

Disparities were also apparent in relation to homes’ ability to meet certain needs. For example, while having a quarter of homes overall, the North West had only 18% of homes catering for autistic children.

Overall, the roughly 6,000 young people in homes were placed an average of 36 miles from where they lived prior to coming into care – compared with 13 miles for those in foster care. The average distance was higher for those placed in homes that could meet the needs of children with mental health needs (44 miles) and those who could accommodate children who had experienced abuse or neglect (42 miles).

‘A vicious cycle’

On behalf of the ADCS, Pearce added: “The uneven distribution of homes across the country is an added challenge with homes frequently opening up where housing is cheaper not where they’re needed most, as is the unwillingness of some providers to take children with any level of complexity for fear of the impact on their Ofsted rating.

“This can mean children and young people with complex needs, who are equally deserving of our love, care and support, are placed miles away from their friends, families and communities or in a home on their own and sometimes in unregulated provision. This is not in the best interests of children, and it has a knock-on effect on the availability of homes and local authority budgets. It’s a vicious cycle.”

In its report, Ofsted said that the location of homes was likely a product of the lack of a national plan as councils withdrew from providing homes and private sector provision expanded over the past two decades.

It said two studies had found there was not a close relationship between house prices and the location of homes – though this was rejected by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, in its final report in May. The regulator said there was scope for more research into the topic.

Story updated 1 February 2022

The government should be responsible for ensuring there are enough secure placements for looked-after children to address the current shortage, the Children’s Commissioner for England has said.

In July last year, Ofsted said that, at any one time, 25 children were waiting for a place at one of England’s 13 secure homes, and 20 children from England had been placed in secure units in Scotland.

The shortage has forced local authorities to seek court orders for bespoke placements for children needing secure care, causing judges to repeatedly criticise the lack of provision nationally for children with complex needs. Under section 25 of the Children Act 1989, secure placements are reserved for looked-after children who would otherwise be likely to abscond, putting themselves at significant risk, or to injure themselves or others.

The commissioner, Rachel de Souza, made the call for the Department for Education (DfE) to address the current shortage in a report on improving provision for looked-after children, published this week. Under her plan, councils would still bear the costs of the placements.

The report, which is designed to influence the children’s social care review, made a number of proposals to improve stability and support for looked-after children and enable them to have a much greater say in how they are cared for.

Instability ‘the single biggest failure’

The commissioner said that placement instability – rooted in the lack of provision – was the “single biggest failure” in services for looked-after children, with one in four experiencing two or more moves every two years.

De Souza called for an England-wide strategy to reduce instability, with a national target to reduce this rate to one in ten children within five years, and local targets for councils to reduce their rates.

Authorities should be bound to set out how they would meet their targets in their sufficiency strategies, said the commissioner. These are required under their duty to secure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children in their area for whom a local placement would be appropriate.

De Souza also urged the care review to consider recommending that Ofsted inspections assess councils against the quality of their sufficiency strategies and the rates of instability experienced by children.

‘Trusting relationships’

The report highlighted the value of looked-after children having at least one trusting relationship, but said this was undermined by high turnover of social workers. Previous research by the commissioner has found that three in five children in care experience a change of social worker each year, with one in four having two or more changes.

“Children should be able to expect their social worker to support them over several years, with a proper handover process whereby children are able to build up a relationship before any crucial decisions are made,” the report said.

De Souza said practitioners needed to be freed up to invest time in building relationships with children in care, through reduced caseloads and paperwork.

As well as investment in the workforce, she said this could be achieved by increasing the use of automation when making records and through “shared systems” that reduced the need for social workers to fill out “duplicate referrals”.

However, the report said that, where children had a difficult rapport with their social worker, they should be able to build a trusting relationship with another professional, such as an advocate or a youth worker.

IRO role ‘not working’

Children should also play a greater role in their reviews, saying they too rarely believed they could shape the process, being greatly outnumbered by professionals, some of whom they did not know well.

The commissioner said the independent reviewing officer (IRO) role was not working, with children rarely having strong relationships with them outside of reviews, which IROs chair. She also said IROs, who are employed by local authorities, did not have sufficient independence to challenge decisions while also not being able to take sufficient ownership of outcomes for the children they were responsible for.

While the report did not make any specific recommendations to reform the role, the commissioner called for “greater connection between IROs and advocacy services to provide more independent challenge”.

Longstanding sufficiency concerns

De Souza’s report follows many that have raised significant concerns about the lack of placements for looked-after children, including from her predecessor as commissioner, Anne Longfield.

Both the care review and the Competition and Markets Authority, in its current study on children’s social care, have raised concerns about the power providers had to dictate terms to local authorities, leading to high prices and insufficient provision.

In its interim report, the CMA suggested moving towards regional or national procurement or commissioning of looked-after children’s placements to give councils more clout with providers. It will provide recommendations on the issue in its final report, due by March.

Meanwhile, the government has provided £259m, from 2022-25, to increase the capacity of open and secure children’s homes.

Alongside this, Ofsted has made regulatory changes to enable providers to register children’s homes with up to four buildings, to tackle capacity challenges.

In response to de Souza’s report, Association of Directors of Children’s Services vice president Steve Crocker welcomed her call “for the DfE to play a greater role in securing sufficiency in secure children’s homes”

He said the ADCS believed that “a wholly new and much more therapeutic approach” for children and young people with “very complex and overlapping health, education and social care needs” – the cohort who may need secure care.

“Unfortunately, finding the right placement, at the right time and in the best location for a growing number of children in our care is becoming increasingly difficult because we face a national shortage of placements of all types,” Crocker added.

He said the CMA and care review’s work would be “crucial in enabling local authorities to meet their sufficiency duties in future”, and that the extra government investment and Ofsted regulatory changes would “help ease these challenges down the line”.

Ofsted’s national director for social care, Yvette Stanley, said it would back a “national commissioning strategy for secure placements”, based on an assessment of the needs of children across the youth justice, care and mental health systems.

Children ‘placed over 100 miles away’

She added: “As well as ensuring there are enough places, stability in revenue and capital funding is needed to maintain and upgrade buildings, so they can meet the needs of the children now in the system.

“Placements also need to be in the right places. In some cases, we are seeing children placed over 100 miles away from their homes, which has a real impact on family and community bonds.”

In relation to setting targets for stability, Stanley said data alone can be “a blunt and inaccurate measure of progress”, but that “well-designed, measurable targets” could, with other actions, “be motivating and lead to positive change”.

She said that Ofsted would be “happy to be part of the conversation that considers different approaches to make sure this is a priority”.

In relation to Ofsted inspections assessing councils’ delivery of their sufficiency strategies and the rates of instability experienced by looked-after children, Stanley said she sould be happy to engage in discussions.

However, she added: “Sufficiency of placements is central to our work, but we look at this through the lens of individual children’s experiences, rather than an evaluation of strategies, policies and procedures. At a local level the number of these children will be small, so planning needs to be joined up regionally and nationally.”

The current framework for Ofsted’s inspections of local authorities asks councils to provide a range of relevant information including their sufficiency strategy, and associated commissioning plans.