CHH0020

1.      About the Local Government Association

1.1.  The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We are a politically led, cross-party membership organisation, representing councils from England and Wales.

1.2.  Our role is to support, promote and improve local government, and raise national awareness of the work of councils. Our ultimate ambition is to support councils to deliver local solutions to national problems.

2.      Summary

2.1.  The LGA welcomes consideration of the experiences and outcomes of children living in children’s homes. It is right that we challenge ourselves to ensure that the children in our care are living in loving homes that meet their needs, and that they are being supported to overcome trauma and achieve positive outcomes.

2.2.  While we must be clear on any trends and how to consistently improve, we must also be cautious about making assumptions about the likely outcomes for children living in residential care. We believe it will be important for the Committee to adopt an approach that highlights the strengths of the current system, using language that focuses on the ways in which children can and do achieve positive outcomes, rather than a focus solely on potential negative outcomes.

2.3.  It is important that the voice of children living in children’s homes is a key feature of the Committee’s inquiry. Understanding children’s experiences, the things they value about living in their home and the areas where they would like to see change is invaluable when it comes to recommending changes to make a real difference. It would also be helpful to consider how children’s homes ensure young people are prepared for adulthood to ensure that they are able to thrive when leaving care.

2.4.  Children living in children’s homes overall are significantly more likely to have additional needs than their peers, including children in other forms of care. This is likely to impact on their educational attainment, and we encourage consideration of children’s progress alongside attainment levels when looking at educational outcomes. Evidence highlights that stability and a longer time in care, including children’s homes, can have a positive impact on a child’s education.

2.5.  The Department for Education’s (DfE) on-going review of the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system must report urgently, setting out how a reformed system can better meet the needs of all children and young people with special needs, including those in children’s homes. This should include long-term certainty and sufficiency of funding, alongside a clear accountability framework and a focus on more inclusive education.

2.6.  The need for children’s home accommodation currently outstrips supply, and this is undoubtedly driving the increasing use of unregulated and unregistered accommodation. Councils in particular report difficulties finding placements for young people with particularly complex needs or challenging behaviours.

2.7.  The narrow approaches to “care” and “support” which differentiates regulated and unregulated provision can be unhelpful, and we would welcome a more flexible approach. For example, while a young person may welcome the independence and responsibility of an unregulated setting, they may require the level of emotional support that might come from a care setting. This would allow councils to establish young person-centred plans and packages that ensure young people get what they need.

2.8.  The lack of sufficiency in placements, and the clustering of children’s homes in areas of cheaper accommodation, leads to many children being placed out of area. While out of area placements can be positive where they meet a child’s needs, they can also increase the risk of exploitation, feeling isolated from loved ones, and challenges receiving the right support.

2.9.  Research for the LGA identified five barriers to investment in children’s homes by smaller providers and councils, which are laid out in 7.8. These barriers are not all experienced to the same extent by larger groups of private providers, in particular those with private equity or stock market backing. Councils have raised concerns around their ability to effectively commission provision when these large organisations continue to expand their market share.

2.10.        Significant progress has been made in relation to the criminalisation of children living in children’s homes, however there is still much to be done. Pressure on children’s social care budgets limits the ability of councils to invest in the accommodation and support options needed to provide the best and most appropriate help for all children, while there is more to do to improve the capacity and professionalisation of the children’s homes workforce.

2.11.        Councils are concerned that as we move into recovery from the pandemic, the need for children’s homes placements could increase. Evidence has already highlighted the hidden harm adolescents may have faced during repeated lockdowns, with teenagers more likely to need children’s homes placements than younger children. Increasing financial hardship during the economic downturn may also drive more referrals to children’s social care.

2.12.        Rising demand and significantly diminished resources have severely impacted on the ability of local authorities to provide effective care and support for children and families outside of the statutory child protection system, including those providing kinship care. Insufficient investment in early help for these families is a false economy in the longer-term, but the huge rise in children needing urgent child protection support has left many councils facing extremely difficult decisions when allocating increasingly scarce resources.

2.13.        As we call for in our child-centred recovery report, it is crucial the Government adequately funds children’s social care to ensure that all children and families receive the support they need. This should include the reinstatement of the £1.7 billion removed from the Early Intervention Grant since 2010, alongside sufficient funding to properly support children with social workers, those in care and care leavers.

2.14.        It is important to consider the lessons that can be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes, for example, a combination of virtual and in-person approaches to delivering education or maintaining contact with birth families could be positive ways to improve the outcomes and experiences of some children living in children’s homes. This should of course be decided on a case-by-case basis, according to the needs of the child.

3.      Educational outcomes for children and young people in children’s homes, including attainment and progression to education, employment and training destinations

3.1.  Research by the Nuffield Foundation found that young people living in residential care at age 16 scored over six grades less at GCSE than those who were in kinship or foster care.

3.2.  However, as noted by the Narey Review of Children’s Residential Care in England, it is very difficult to link a period in children’s homes to educational outcomes when most children spend only brief periods in them. The Review expresses concern that correlation between residential care and poor academic outcomes should not be interpreted as causation.

3.3.  The review also points to some evidence that children who spend longer in residential provision may have better outcomes than those who have only spent a short time in such provision. This reflects findings by the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford that young people who have been in longer-term care achieve better educational outcomes that those ‘in need’ but not in care, and those who have only been in short term care. The Rees Centre also found that stability of placement, and school in years 10 and 11, contributed to better educational outcomes.

3.4.  Children living in residential provision have higher incidences of additional needs than children in all types of care. Research by Ofsted in 2020 found that:

3.4.1.           Children living in children’s homes were 20 times more likely to be in special education than all children nationally, with more than half attending special schools.

3.4.2.           Almost half (47 per cent) of children in children’s homes have an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP), with a further 27 per cent receiving special educational need (SEN) support. This compares to 3 per cent and 12 per cent respectively for all children.

3.4.3.           18 per cent of children in children’s homes attend Pupil Referral Units, compared to less than 1 per cent of all children. Three quarters of these children had a primary SEN relating to their social, emotional and mental health (SEMH).

3.4.4.           More than half of children in children’s homes attending state-funded primary schools had a primary SEN of SEMH.

3.5.  Consideration of children’s educational outcomes should take into account the needs and experiences of children. It is helpful to look at progress, rather than attainment, while recognising that we should always encourage children in care to aim high and provide the support they need to achieve their potential. Reflecting points made at 3.3, national statistics highlight that children who had been continuously looked after for 12 months or more made more academic progress than the average child in need, and far more than those who had been in care for a shorter period of time, though less than the average for non-looked after children.

3.6.  Virtual School Heads (VSHs) are responsible for promoting the educational achievement of all children in the council’s care. This is a valuable role that focuses attention on the needs of individual children and ensures pupil premium can be used in a way that most benefits looked-after children.

3.7.  Statutory guidance on promoting the education of looked-after children requires VSHs to support social workers in arranging a suitable school placement that best suits the child’s needs. However, local authorities have no power to direct academies or free schools to take looked-after children, even where this is in the child’s best interest. Given that academies make up the majority of secondary school provision, councils should be given the power to direct academies and free schools to accept a pupil in need of a place, to enable councils to ensure children have access to the best school for their needs.

3.8.  Some children’s homes reported anecdotally that some children responded well to learning at home during the Covid-19 pandemic without distractions and social issues that came up at school. While most children preferred being in school with friends and responded well to the routine this provided, this highlights the value of considering the individual needs of children and considering what lessons might be learned as a result of the pandemic.

4.      The quality of, and access to, support for children and young people in children’s homes, including support for those with special education needs, and the support available at transition points

4.1.  The DfE’s ongoing review of the SEND system must report urgently, setting out how a reformed system can better meet the needs of all children and young people with special needs, including those in children’s homes. The review must give councils long-term certainty and sufficiency of funding to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND, but it is clear that system reform is also necessary.

4.2.  Specifically we are calling for the creation of a clear accountability framework in local areas with councils, as local SEND system leaders, having the powers to hold schools and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) or Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) to account for the decisions that they are taking to support children and young people with EHCPs.

4.3.  Over 50 per cent of school-age children with EHCPs are educated outside of mainstream settings. We believe that reversing this trend and increasing levels of mainstream inclusion will be crucial in driving down pressure on council high needs budgets. We know that pupils with SEND are disproportionately likely to be excluded from school and while we know that headteachers must retain powers to exclude disruptive pupils, we would like to explore how the curriculum could be made more inclusive to reduce the use of off-rolling and exclusions to drive up exam performance.

4.4.  On EHCPs themselves, there is a clear need to have a long-term focus on ensuring that children and young people with SEND are given tools to live as independently as possible and can find meaningful employment, thus avoiding a cliff-edge in care when they reach the age of 25. EHCPs are another example of where councils need powers to hold CCGs/ICSs and schools to account, to ensure that they are making a high-quality contribution to their development and ongoing maintenance.

5.      The use and appropriateness of unregulated provision

5.1.  The need for children’s home accommodation currently outstrips supply, and this is undoubtedly driving the increasing use of unregulated and unregistered accommodation. Councils in particular report difficulties finding placements for young people with particularly complex needs or challenging behaviours. We encourage the Government to consider the reasons for the increasing need for children’s home placements, alongside work to identify the kinds of placements that are needed and how to develop these. Without increasing the availability of suitable accommodation, or reducing the need for it, we will not reduce the use of unregulated and unregistered placements.

5.2.  We believe that for some young people, a level of independence with appropriate support is the best way of ensuring that they can make a positive transition to adulthood. Additionally, if a young person chooses to leave care at 16, having accommodation options that respond to their wants and needs while making sure they are supported is vital.

5.3.  However, we are clear that unregulated provision for under 18s should only be used as part of a planned transition and where it is in the best interests of the young person. A lack of suitable accommodation currently means that this may not always be the case, and this must be addressed urgently to ensure that young people get the right care and support for their needs.

5.4.  We encourage consideration of the language used to describe “unregulated” and “unregistered” accommodation. The two are frequently confused, while “unregulated” implies a lack of oversight, when in fact councils implement their own quality assurance and monitoring processes.

5.5.  More clarity is needed to distinguish between “care” and “support” in order to clarify the distinction between unregulated and unregistered provision. This would in particular be helpful for those situations in which additional support is gradually added to a young person’s package of support to respond to their needs when they are in an unregulated setting, which can result in the placement in fact becoming unregistered.

5.6.  However, we also believe that narrow approaches to “care” and “support” can

be unhelpful, and we must consider a more flexible approach. For example, the needs of young people – as with all of us - can change in response to life events. Where a young person may have been thriving in an unregulated setting receiving some support to help them transition to independence, a change in circumstances might result in a need for care for a period of time. We do not believe that this should result in that young person having to move out of a setting in which they are settled, into a registered setting in order to receive that care.

5.7.  We should also consider whether young people may need “care” in some areas and “support” in others. While a young person may welcome the independence and responsibility of an unregulated setting, they may require the level of emotional support that might come from a care setting.

5.8.  A more flexible approach to “care” and “support” would allow councils to establish young person-centred plans and packages that ensure young people get what they need.

6.      Criminalisation of children in children’s homes

6.1.  Lord Laming’s review of the criminalisation of children in care found that while the vast majority (94 per cent) of looked-after children in England and Wales did not get into trouble with the law, around half of children in custody had been in care at some point. Research by the Howard League for Penal Reform found that children living in children’s homes were being criminalised at a far higher rate than other children in care, pointing to a particular issue in residential provision.

6.2.  The Howard League research suggested a number of reasons for this, including police being called to children’s homes over minor incidents and to manage disruptive behaviour, and some children’s homes using police detention as “respite care”.

6.3.  A national protocol on reducing the unnecessary criminalisation of looked-after children and care leavers was introduced in November 2018, while the Howard League put in place a targeted programme of work to end the criminalisation of children in residential care.

6.4.  This work supported a concerted effort by councils, the police and children’s homes providers which has led to significant progress. In 2013/14, 15 per cent of children living in children’s homes were criminalised; in 2018/19, this had gone down to seven per cent.

6.5.  While this is good news, there is clearly still much to be done. Investment in the children’s homes workforce and in support for children in care would help to drive forward this change.

6.6.  Children’s social care budgets are under significant pressure due to the dual impact of rising demand and significant cuts to council budgets over the last decade. Despite increasing children’s social care budgets by more than a billion pounds since 2017/18, 85 per cent of councils were still forced to overspend by a total of over £800 million in 2019/20 to ensure children were protected. This pressure severely limits the ability of councils to invest in the accommodation and support options needed to provide the best and most appropriate help for all children. 

6.7.  We have also called for the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care to consider the professionalisation and capacity of the children’s home workforce. We know that stability and trusted relationships improve outcomes for children in care, but turnover of staff can affect this. We also need to make sure we have enough staff to keep workloads manageable, allowing workers the opportunity to build relationships and spend time with children, along with funding to suitably reward staff for the vital work they do, and a programme of continuing professional development. Those working in children’s homes are supporting children who may have been through traumatic experiences and who are far more likely than their peers to experience a mental health disorder. It is vital that they have the skills to support these children and young people appropriately.

7.      The sufficiency of places in children’s homes, and the regional location of homes

7.1.  Councils consistently highlight challenges around the availability of suitable residential placements. This is in part due to a significant increase in the number of children in care; there were 64,470 children in care in 2010, compared to 80,080 in 2020, a rise of 24 per cent. This also represents an increase in the proportion of children in care, from 57 to 67 per 10,000 children over the decade. The number of 10-18 year olds in care has risen more quickly than the number of under 10s, with older children more likely to require placements in children’s homes.

7.2.  For children and young people, this lack of sufficiency can have a range of negative outcomes. For example, it may lead to children being placed far from home. In 2020, 20 per cent of all looked-after children were placed more than 20 miles from home; this rose to 38 per cent of those living in secure units, children’s homes of semi-independent accommodation. While the first consideration should always be ensuring the right home for the child, wherever that might be, there is also evidence that placements further from home can bring with them risks. This includes the risk of exploitation, feeling isolated from loved ones, and challenges receiving the right support.

7.3.  It is likely that increasing privatisation of children’s homes provision is leading to the unequal geographical distribution of children’s homes. As Ofsted reports, a quarter of all children’s homes are in the North West region, compared to only one in 19 in London. This reflects property prices, with homes clustering in regions where property is cheaper. While individual local authorities and small providers have incentives to develop local provision, this is less of a driver for some larger groups who operate nationally or across multiple regions.

7.4.  A lack of sufficiency can also lead to a lack of stability for children. If children are placed in homes that do not meet their needs, this increases the chance of a placement breakdown. While most looked-after children had one placement in 2019/20, 11 per cent (8,470) had three or more. Placement instability can reduce a child’s opportunities to develop secure attachments and exacerbate existing behavioural and emotional difficulties. They can also result in worse psychological, social and academic outcomes. Children themselves highlight the impact on their own mental health and relationships of multiple placement moves.

7.5.  Councils report particular challenges around placements for young people with particularly complex and/or challenging needs. A chronic shortfall in secure welfare accommodation and inpatient children’s mental health facilities is placing significant pressure on specialist children’s homes placements. Councils also report some children’s homes providers being unwilling to offer placements to these children in case the challenges of supporting them leads to a falling Ofsted rating. Providers express concern that this could in turn lead to fewer referrals, as many councils prefer to place only in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ homes, which clearly has an impact on the financial viability of the home. 

7.6.  Where provision cannot be found, councils can be forced to place in unregistered or unregulated placements. These placements are often short-term while a long-term placement is found, resulting in a lack of stability for the young person, and they have not gone through the rigorous Ofsted registration and inspection regime to ensure their suitability to care for children.

7.7.  From the perspective of local authorities, this insufficiency can drive higher prices and a lack of choice over placements. Councils have a responsibility to find suitable homes for the children in their care, but in some cases report being unable to do so, despite in some cases making national searches lasting several weeks. Councils report feeling they have no choice but to pay very high prices for placements where there are no other options, putting pressure on already strained budgets and diverting money away from supporting other children.

7.8.  Research for the LGA by SECNewgate Research identified five key barriers to investment in new children’s homes by local authorities or smaller independent providers:

7.8.1.           The perceived role of children’s residential care as part of the wider system of support for children and young people

7.8.2.           Making a robust business case for investing in children’s residential care

7.8.3.           Having the necessary infrastructure, management and staffing in place

7.8.4.           Complexity of presenting needs among children and young people

7.8.5.           Co-ordinated and strategic commissioning practices.

7.9.  The perceived role of residential care as a placement of last resort can discourage investment. The research identified that children could be placed in several foster care placements before being placed in a children’s home, due to a desire to raise children in family settings, a belief that children placed in children’s homes achieve worse outcomes, and because foster placements are on average 5-6 times cheaper.

7.10.        In order to secure public or private funding to invest in new children’s homes capacity, any provider including a council must make a robust business case. This not only reassures lenders about their investment (or the public about use of public money), but ensures financial planning is adequate to enable the delivery of good quality provision and to avoid a home closing abruptly, causing disruption for children.

7.11.        An independent review of the future funding outlook for councils by the Institute of Fiscal Studies in September 2020 found that councils could face a funding gap (that is, between available funding and what needs to be spent to maintain current service levels and quality) of £9.8 billion by 2023/24. In this climate, additional investment by local authorities is exceptionally difficult.

7.12.        Furthermore, short-term funding settlements for local authorities make it challenging for councils to plan long-term. We have called for the Government to commit to a multi-year local government funding settlement to enable councils to set reliable medium-term financial strategies.

7.13.        Local authorities’ ability to find the capital funding necessary to invest in its own provision is hampered by lack of revenue funding to meet ongoing costs. The prudential regime for local authority capital finance enables councils to borrow to fund capital investment, but in order to do this they need to have sufficient revenue funding secured to cover the long-term costs. The lack of certainty over this affects the capacity for capital investment in services such as children’s homes.

7.14.        Identifying suitable properties in which to establish children’s homes can be extremely challenging. The SECNewgate research identified that finding properties of a suitable size and in a suitable location could be extremely difficult, especially in those areas where such properties were very expensive. Additional challenges were then faced in achieving planning permission, with considerable opposition reported from local communities who have concerns around anti-social behaviour, increased traffic and/or the potential impact on house prices.

7.15.        A further challenge outlined in the research was in terms of recruiting experienced staff, in particular suitably skilled children’s homes managers. Participants in the research identified a need to validate the role of residential children’s care as an important part of the wider system to open the door to greater professionalisation, reward and recognition of staff in care settings.

7.16.        Councils report increasing complexity and severity of need amongst children and young people in care, for example in relation to mental health issues, self-harm and violent behaviours, and the impacts of sexual and criminal exploitation. Councils also point to a fall in the number of young people in the youth justice secure estate, and the insufficiency of inpatient mental health facilities, which is likely contributing to this increase.

7.17.        Developing provision that effectively meets the needs of these children and young people is complex, and requires input from a range of stakeholders, in particular health services. Councils report frustration in engaging with health services in some cases to ensure appropriate provision, with differing priorities and significant pressures on budgets leading to siloed working. Councils report that they often find themselves paying for health services in the absence of investment by the NHS.

7.18.        The strategic commissioning of children’s homes placements is often highlighted as a challenge, in particular as a result of issues already outlined, and as homes are increasingly in the ownership of fewer organisations. In residential care, three quarters of children’s homes (1,815) are now run by private companies, and between 2015 and 2019, 29 different legal entities consolidated into just 16 different groups providing large numbers of placements. The size and market share of these groups limits the ability of individual councils to negotiate with them or to shape their local markets.

7.19.        We hope that this inquiry, along with the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, will provide vital evidence to address the current imbalance between the cost of high-quality provision, the sufficiency of suitable provision to meet children’s needs and the available funding for children’s social care. Improved commissioning alone cannot address this fundamental challenge within the system.

8.      The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the extent to which this might increase the demand for places in children’s homes

8.1.  Responses to the DfE's Vulnerable Children and Young People survey indicate that the total number of children who have started to be looked after between May 2020 and February 2021 is around 28 per cent lower than an average of the same weeks during 2017-20 (though this may in part be due to a recent trend towards fewer children entering care). Despite this, councils are reporting increasing overall numbers of children in care as fewer children leave care, in part due to significant backlogs in the family courts.

8.2.  Councils report anecdotally that referrals into children’s social care, while fewer in number than in previous years, are more complex, with issues around mental health and sexual and criminal exploitation of particular concern. These issues particularly affect adolescents, who are more likely to be placed in children’s homes than younger children.

8.3.  We have significant concerns around the medium- to long-term impact of the pandemic on children’s social care. One concern relates to the impact of harm experienced during lockdown. Reports of physical abuse to the NSPCC rose by 53 per cent during lockdown, while police-recorded offences indicate a particular increase in incidents against adolescents. Contacts to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline increased by more than 60 per cent between April 2020 and February 2021 compared to pre-lockdown levels. The experiences of those children may only come to light as they start to re-establish relationships with trusted adults as services start to re-open.

8.4.  We also have concerns that unemployment and resulting financial hardship will lead to more children and families requiring support unless these issues are mitigated. We have called for the Government to work with councils to ensure a properly resourced safety net that prevents families falling into crisis in the event of job losses or financial difficulties. This should include the restoration of Local Welfare Funding - to at least £250 million per annum - to enable a more locally-led and preventative approach to addressing financial hardship.

8.5.  It is vital that councils and their partners receive the funding they need to provide support to children and their families as soon as they need it, and to ensure children can be supported and kept safe in their homes wherever possible.

9.      The support available for kinship carers, and for children in homes to maintain relationships with their birth families

9.1.  Kinship carers provide a vital service to society, stepping in to provide love and care for children who are no longer able to live with their birth parents.

9.2.  Rising demand and significantly diminished resources have severely impacted on the ability of local authorities to provide effective care and support for struggling children and families outside of the statutory child protection system, including those providing kinship care. Insufficient investment in early help for these families is a false economy in the longer-term, but the huge rise in children needing urgent child protection support has left many councils facing extremely difficult decisions when allocating increasingly scarce resources.

9.3.  Kinship care can take a number of different forms, but the vast majority of children in kinship care are in informal arrangements. Councils will often have no involvement in arranging informal kinship care, which can be arranged privately within the family. In some cases, however, the local authority may support a family group conference or other family mediation process, which is led by family members to plan and make decisions for a child who is at risk. Children and young people are normally involved in their own family group conference, although often with support from an advocate. It is a voluntary process and families cannot be forced to have a family group conference. Most councils in England offer family group conferencing (or similar) services.

9.4.  The minority of children living in more formal kinship care arrangements, such as kinship foster care or through a Special Guardianship Order (SGO), will have access to more formal support. The use of SGOs has increased significantly in recent years, and a growing number of kinship carers will now be caring for children through this arrangement. However, even support for these more formal arrangements has become increasingly pressured due to funding cuts and rising demand.

9.5.  Local authorities are required to have a policy which says how they will promote and support the needs of children living with kinship carers. This will usually signpost carers to information about benefits or tax credits and provide advice about the universal and targeted services available to children and families. In some cases, the local authority may also provide more specific support to kinship carers. Several councils, for example, are working with Kinship to deliver Kinship Connected, a support service for kinship carers.

9.6.  Kinship care can be a very challenging situation, and many of these families would benefit from additional support through early help or other support services such as those for children with special educational needs. However, these are the very services that are under huge and increasing pressure as a result of years of funding reductions and rising demand for statutory child protection services.

9.7.  We continue to call on the Government to adequately fund children’s social care to ensure that all children and families receive the support they need. This should include the reinstatement of the £1.7 billion removed from the Early Intervention Grant since 2010, alongside sufficient funding to properly support children with social workers, those in care and care leavers.

9.8.  While the pandemic has had devastating outcomes for many, it has also proven an opportunity to consider how we facilitate contact between children in care and their birth families.

9.9.  Some children’s homes reported that children had welcomed the lack of pressure to engage with families during lockdown and/or had found engaging with their families remotely to be more manageable than face-to-face contact. As we move into recovery from the pandemic, it will be helpful to consider how we learn lessons from this experience to ensure children living in children’s homes have the best options available to them in terms of how they have contact with their families.

April 2021