Despite a 2021 ban on unregistered children’s homes, councils in England are placing more children than ever in illegal settings, with some costing up to £2m per child per year. Around 800 children are currently in unregistered placements in settings including caravans, flats above shops and suburban housing, often far from their home communities.

Council spending on residential care has tripled in eight years to £3.7 billion annually, driven in part by a surge of property investors entering the sector. The average registered placement now costs £6,100 a week, yet Ofsted has failed to successfully prosecute a single provider of an illegal home. 84% of children’s homes in England are privately run, compared with 17% in Denmark.

The government is pinning its hopes on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, which aims to create 10,000 more foster places and provides £53m for new homes, though critics describe this as insufficient given the scale of the crisis.

Dr Mark Kerr, Chief Executive of the Children’s Homes Association, said: “This is the culmination of 10 years of systemic failure to develop specialist provision for our most vulnerable children. Nobody will seem to accept responsibility”.

See also CYP Now – Children’s homes body urges end to unregistered placements by 2030