Ministers commission report on tougher rules on out of borough care

The Government is to commission a report on tougher regulations before any local authority can place a child outside their home borough.

The so-called ‘task and finish group', which will report by September, will consider a range of issues including how to ensure there is better scrutiny, planning and assessment of risks before a decision is taken to place a child at a distance.

It will also look at whether further changes to the care planning framework are needed to ensure that local authorities respond appropriately should difficulties emerge in children’s placements.

Production of the report is one of a package of measures intended to protect children in residential care homes from sexual exploitation.

The proposed reforms follow publication of a report from the Deputy Children’s Commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, following the recent grooming and abuse case in Rochdale and a progress report on the national Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation Action Plan, which was issued in November 2011. New guidance has also been produced for frontline staff.

Berelowitz’s report found growing evidence that children in care are particularly vulnerable to child sexual exploitation. A disproportionate number are being groomed or sexually exploited, although the Department for Education pointed out that the majority of victims were outside the care system.

The Deputy Children’s Commissioner also concluded that some residential homes were specifically targeted by abusers.

The DfE said: “Ministers accept there may be good reasons for placing a child or young person at some distance from their home area but argue it is difficult to accept that nearly half of all children in children’s homes benefit from such distant placements.”

The Department said it would also launch a new expert group to develop a “robust, transparent and high quality” data system that identifies the number of children that go missing from care.

“This will resolve the huge discrepancies between the official local authority figures of children in care who go missing from care for more than 24 hours and incidents reported to and recorded by the police,” it said, adding that it had written to all local authorities asking them to immediately review their own data collections alongside local police figures.

Other measures announced today (3 July) include immediate changes to regulations so that Ofsted can share information about the location of children’s homes with the police, and other relevant bodies as appropriate.

The DfE also promised another expert group would review all aspects of the quality and effectiveness of children’s homes – “including their management, ownership and staffing”. This is expected to lead to a report by September.

The Berelowitz report contained a series of recommendations to address serious weaknesses in how care homes report and react to children going missing; in the checks made before children are placed into care homes; and weaknesses in staff skills and management quality. She will produce a final report in the autumn of 2013.

It comes just days after an extremely critical report by the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Children Missing From Care, which called for urgent action to address key failings in the care system.

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton said: “These reports lift the lid on very serious weaknesses in the system. There are good children’s homes and excellent care workers but it is clear that far too many of the most vulnerable children in society are being exposed to harm and danger. It is completely unacceptable that existing rules are simply being ignored and that frankly, some local authorities and homes are letting down children by failing to act as a proper ‘parent’.”

The minister added that it was “outrageous” that some young people were not being shielded from harm, given the cost of care in a local authority children’s home.

He said: “We want to get rid of an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ culture which sees residential care as a last resort, instead of protecting vulnerable young people and giving them the best possible start in life.”

A consultation on the proposed changes will take place in the autumn. The possibility of tougher regulation on out-of-borough placements comes less than a month after Kent County Council called for a change in the law.

The local authority said there should be a statutory obligation on councils to place looked-after children no more than 15 miles from their home or school unless by exception.