Children in care are being moved far from home – my bill would start to address this crisis
3 min read
Aged 15, Jade was moved to a children’s home. Instead of finding her somewhere nearby in London, Jade’s local authority placed her in Lancashire, 250 miles away from everyone she knew. What was initially meant to be a two-week placement lasted two years, she told ITV.
After a difficult childhood, Chereece was relocated eight times in a single year, living out of a bin bag across the North of England and Wales. She told Channel 4 the experience made her feel “like an animal – like a piece of rubbish”.
This year, almost half of all children in care – 45 per cent – have been moved ‘out of area’, ie outside their local authority, and 22 per cent have been moved more than 20 miles away from home.
What’s troubling about these figures is how much the situation is worsening. The number of children living more than 20 miles from home has increased by 51 per cent between 2014 and 2024.
These are young lives separated from their community, their siblings, friends and teachers, with all the associated damage to their relationships and education.
Often, they are moved alone, without warning, to unregistered settings, with little regulatory oversight. Out of sight, this is one of the most shameful scandals in modern Britain.
Under the Children Act 1989, local authorities have a legal obligation to ensure children in care find new homes within their local community. Increasingly, they can’t meet this obligation.
How did we get here? The short answer: demand for foster carers and children’s homes has outstripped local supply.
While the number of children’s homes has increased parallel to the rise in children in care, these homes are not evenly distributed across the country, and only a limited number offer specialised care. Savage cuts to local councils since 2010 have meant children’s services being pared back and social housing turned over to private contractors.
Creating enough care homes nationally, however poorly distributed, to meet growing demand reflects the quick-fix attitude pervading Westminster since 2010. And, as with much ‘this will do’ policymaking, short-termism has proved costly. The County Councils Network estimates it costs £300,000 a year on average to provide a care home placement for a child. This is money that cash-strapped councils could instead be spending on preventative measures.
In the face of this growing crisis, the amount of information local authorities make public is sketchy at best. Last month, I introduced a Private Members’ Bill in Parliament to change that.
My bill would improve transparency, requiring local authorities to publish information about looked-after children in distance placements, as well as their sufficiency plans, setting out what steps they are taking to meet their legal requirements to find local homes for children in care.
This is a modest but important step forward that would allow us to better understand – and hold to account – the system at a local level. But, in truth, to deal with this crisis in the long term, we need councils to shift their focus back towards long-term solutions.
The government is already investing £40m to recruit more foster carers and better support kinship carers, and £400m to open more children’s homes where they are most needed. We must also meet our target of 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, to create more care homes across the country and help more people become foster parents.
More broadly, as the Prime Minister has made clear, we need policymaking to focus on preventative measures. Poverty – one of the major contributors to family breakdowns – is set to rise by the end of the decade; alleviating this will help ease pressure on our local authorities.
I am confident the government and relevant ministers are keen to act. After 14 years of sticking-plaster politics, we have been elected to take long-term action.
This crisis is costing us more as it worsens. And at its heart are some of the most vulnerable and voiceless people in our society. It is immoral to allow this broken system to continue.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
