Ministers goal extra earnings in kids’s social care sector in new crackdown

Bridget Phillipson last night has announced a major crackdown on neglect and excess profits in the children’s social care support system.

The Education Secretary warned private providers that a new law will limit the profit they can make if they do not voluntarily put an end to profiteering.

The Department for Education (DfE) said the cost to local councils to look after kids has ballooned in recent years. They said local government spending on children in care homes rocketed from £3.1billion in 2009-10 to £7billion in 2022-23.

The biggest 15 private providers make an average of 23% profit, according to a recent analysis by the Local Government Association.

The DfE said one of the biggest problems is that some providers “are siphoning off money that should be going towards vulnerable children, making excessive profits or running unregistered homes that don’t meet the right standards of care.”

The department also said new powers will be handed to Ofsted to combat issue fines to providers and deter “unscrupulous behaviour”.

Ms Phillipson said: “Our care system has suffered from years of drift and neglect. It’s bankrupting councils, letting families down, and above all, leaving too many children feeling forgotten, powerless and invisible.

“We will crack down on care providers making excessive profit, tackle unregistered and unsafe provision and ensure earlier intervention to keep families together and help children to thrive.”

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said: “Every child deserves to grow up safe, happy, healthy and engaged in their communities and in their education. With this Bill we have an opportunity to repair how we treat childhood in this country.

“Children are paying the price of a broken social care system that allows profits over protection.”

It comes as a separate report published today by the Children’s Commissioner also found some vulnerable young people have been placed in a caravan and an Airbnb in a “stark failure of the children’s social care system” in England.

While most children subject to court orders from the High Court depriving them of their liberty are in appropriate settings such as children’s homes, many are in “highly unsuitable” accommodation, the Commissioner said.