‘ Fragmented’ care system failing thousands of children says report

THOUSANDS OF children in care are being repeatedly moved between residential homes or living in unregulated accommodation, reporting “disgusting” and prison- like conditions, a report has found.

Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield said those falling through the cracks of an increasingly “fragmented, unco- ordinated and irrational system” risk becoming victims of criminal or sexual exploitation.

She has published three reports setting out how children’s residential social care is failing some of the country’s most vulnerable children.

The Government’s failure to heed previous warnings suggests a “deep- rooted institutional ambivalence”, she believes.

One report, Crisis in residential care: how children are being betrayed by the state, concludes that there are thousands of children the system “doesn’t know what to do with”.

It found there were 8,000 children who had three different homes within a single year as of March 31, 2019.

It noted “frequent and unwanted moves”, children being uprooted to places they could not identify on a map and into children’s homes that were filthy, rat- infested and felt “overly institutional”.

One teenager said she was placed eight hours from her hometown and was not able to see her mother for months.

Another girl never made the effort to unpack because she knew she would be “passed on somewhere else in a few weeks” like a “parcel”.

The report concludes: “Local and national leaders have behaved for far too long as if shutting their eyes will make this problem disappear. It hasn’t, and it won’t.”

Another paper found one in 10 children in care moved home at least twice over 2018- 19, and a quarter did so over two years.

Some 6,500 children lived in at least four different homes over two years, with 12 to 15- year- olds most likely to be moved.

The Commissioner’s final report examined the growth of private companies providing foster placements and children’s homes.

The number of children in homes provided by the private sector grew by 42 per cent between 2011 and 2019, with local authority provision not keeping pace, it found.

Best available estimates suggest certain large providers are seeing a profit margin of around 17 per cent on fees from local authorities on average, which can amount to more than £ 200m a year, the report said.

Ms Longfield said a High Court judge had told her last month that a child in care, whose life was in danger, could not get a home.

She said: “These children are being failed by the state.

“The growing reliance on private providers, some of whom are making millions, is another symptom of a system failing to prioritise the needs of children. The Government and councils have failed in their responsibilities by leaving it to the market.”

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “Our bold, broad and independently- led Care Review will launch as soon as possible, and will support improvements in the children’s social care system.

“This will build on the millions we have invested in secure children’s homes and in projects designed to increase capacity and improve how places for these children are commissioned.”

These children are being failed by the state. Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield.