Thousands of vulnerable young people placed in council care more than 20 miles from home due to “lack of available alternatives”

A third of vulnerable young people in council care had to be placed in accommodation miles from their home last year, research by the County Councils Network (CCN) has found.

The report, authored by CCN and IMPOWER, calls for a requirement for all children and young people to be cared for within their local area or region, with “legislative support and a phased transition”.

The report observes that due to a “chronic” lack of availability in local areas and demand continuing to rise, 32% of children in local authority care in 2023 lived in residential or semi-independent homes more than 20 miles from their local area, school and family - an increase of 18% since 2019.

The authors warned that if nothing changes, there could be a record number of young people placed in children’s homes: over 22,500 individuals by the end of the decade, which would be more than double the amount (10,000) in residential care in 2019.

A survey carried out as part of the research found that no local authority believes private residential placements are currently good value for money overall.

Due to a lack of availability and councils responding to a market often dominated by larger private providers, the average cost of providing a placement for a child in care is now £300,000 a year.

The report projects that almost 10,000 more young people could end up in care by 2030, the total number topping 93,000 across England.

Making suggestions for improvement, CCN and IMPOWER recommended that the government invests £2.6bn into children’s services, as recommended by the 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

The organisations stated: “This will allow councils to invest in preventative services to keep more children with their families.”

The report also calls for a “comprehensive review” of foster carer recruitment and retention, and long-term partnerships with care providers which share risk, skills and investment to deliver the right homes for children and young people’s needs.

Further, the report’s survey found that 94% of councils believe that better co-ordination and planning for placements could help address cost challenges.

The report notes that the current system has favoured short-term “transactional” interactions between councils and care providers, rather than long-term commissioning alongside local partners such as health services.

Cllr Roger Gough, Children’s Services Spokesperson for the County Councils Network, said: “This report should act as a turning point for children’s services in England. It finds a system broken, with councils in the false economy of increasingly paying astronomical sums for placements and less on preventative services. But the biggest losers from the current system are young people themselves, with far too many children being placed many miles from home at a time when they are experiencing the trauma of being removed from their family.

“If we carry on as we are currently almost 10,000 extra young people could end up in care by the end of the decade, at an enormous cost for both young people and local taxpayers. It will leave us locked into a vicious circle of higher spend and poorer outcomes.

“The government’s commitment to reform is a step in the right direction, but change needs to come urgently and within 12 months of the Spending Review next year. The government has promised to fix the foundations: it should start by fixing the foundations of children’s services.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This report puts into sharp focus how vulnerable children across the country are being let down, placed far away from vital support networks, at massive financial cost to councils and human cost to young people’s lives.

"We’re already breaking down barriers to opportunity by investing to recruit more foster carers and kinship carers, as well as providing £400 million to open more children’s homes where they’re most needed.

“For too long, the children’s social care system has been left to fester but we are now determined to deliver meaningful reform once and for all to deliver better life chances for some of the most vulnerable children in our country.”

Lottie Winson