Ofsted Findings – Children’s Social Care In England
In her latest Timms blog, Family Law Solicitor Jo Taylor discusses the Ofsted findings for children’s social care in England…
Background Information
You may have seen reports in the news this week of the number of children in care and the number of places available in children’s homes. This is because Ofsted has just released their annual report with figures for 2021.
Out of the 12 million children living in England, 400,000 (3%) of them are actively involved with Social Care and of those more than 80,000 are currently in care. Children in care are subject to either an interim care order or final care order. This means the Local Authority shares parental responsibility for them due to the Court finding that they were at risk of suffering significant harm in the care of their parents or guardians. Many of these children will be placed with family members or living with foster families. Approximately 70% of the children in care are in foster care.
The Ofsted report considers the remainder of placements for children in care; those in children’s homes and other residential placements. Ofsted regulates providers that offer placements for children in care.
Number Of Places Available
There has been an increase in the number of children’s homes and places available. However, these homes are not spread evenly across the country with over 25% in the North west. The vast majority (over 80%) can accommodate 4 children or less. Most of them are run by private companies and not by the Local Authority.
Placements in other types of places including residential special schools, boarding schools and further educational colleges with residential accommodation have continued to fall.
Secure Children’s Homes
Particularly concerning is the severe shortage of places in secure children’s homes. Children are placed in secure homes when they are a significant risk to themselves or others and no other type of placement can keep them safe. There are 13 secure homes offering 234 places. 12 of these are run by Local Authorities. There are none in the West Midlands and 4 of the 13 are in the North East, Yorkshire and Humber region. In the last 20 years 16 secure units have closed.
At any one time, around 25 children each day are waiting for a place in a secure children’s home and around 20 are placed by English Local Authorities in Scottish secure units due to the lack of available places. This means that even when children get a place the chances are that they will end up living far away from home. This is a problem I encounter often. Children living far away have less contact visits from their families and feel isolated and often abandoned.
Children requiring a place in a secure home will already have complex needs and will probably have suffered a great deal of trauma and placement breakdowns. For any child, having your liberty restricted is a scary and unpleasant experience. To then be living at the other end of the country makes a difficult situation even worse.
Grading and Concerns
Across all children’s homes just over 80% were judged as good or outstanding, 18% required improvement to be good and 1% were judged to be inadequate.
The number and types of visits were affected by Covid restrictions. Ofsted prioritised visits based on an assessment of risk. Of the 861 homes visited, 104 were found to have serious and widespread concerns, many of them relating to the care or protection of children, specifically:
- Poor safeguarding
- Ineffective management
- Poorly maintained homes
- Inadequate response to risks
A number of homes were closed down or withdrew as a result of these findings.
Complaints
The number of complaints about providers increased by 18%. Ofsted received 932 complaints about 629 providers.
Get In Touch?
If you have any questions regarding this blog, or any other Family law queries, please do not hesitate to contact me. You can reach me on j.taylor@timms-law.com or via phone at 01283 561531. Alternatively, you can visit the Family Law page of our website here.
May 2022