Barnsley teens still in unregulated care homes despite government ban
It's thought to be down to a lack of placements in the district.
Last updated 29th Oct 2024
A number of 16 and 17 year olds are still in unregulated care homes in Barnsley, despite a government ban, as councils up and down the country face a shortage of placements for young people in care.
Unregulated care homes provide accommodation and support for young people in the care of the local authority, but are not subject to the same regulatory standards and inspections as registered care homes.
In April 2024, however, Ofsted began inspecting and registering unregulated accommodation providers for 16–17-year-olds in care.
Last year, the government extended a ban on unregulated homes to children in care aged 16 and 17 – yet due to a lack of regulated places, many local authorities have no choice but to use such placements.
A freedom of information request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed that 12 teens in care were placed in such homes in 2019, dropping to six in 2020 before rising again to 23 in 2021 and 26 in 2022. By 2023, that figure has climbed to 51, underscoring a growing crisis in local childcare services.
The average cost of a private residential placement is now £5,600 per week.
Councillor Trevor Cave, cabinet member for children’s services at Barnsley Council, said that as of October 24, only four looked-after young people from Barnsley remain in unregistered homes.
Coun Cave explained that the recent increase is partly due to changes in legislation that now require mandatory Ofsted registration for previously unregulated providers. This change has led to significant delays in the registration process, sometimes lasting up to 18 months, which has left some young people in unregulated care longer than necessary.
Coun Cave added: “Barnsley is experiencing the same pressure on placement sufficiency as the rest of the local authorities in the UK. However, we are bucking the national trend by reducing the numbers of children in our care through improved social work interventions in pre-care proceedings and better permanence planning for children outside of the care system, which has eased these pressures slightly.
“There are now only four looked-after young people from Barnsley in unregistered placements as of Thursday 24 October.
“The significant increase from 2022 to 2023 occurred due to a change in legislation in October 2023, which put an end to unregulated semi-independent 16+ provision and introduced mandatory Ofsted registration for providers.
“Due to the volume of applications nationwide, providers have experienced delays in the registration process of up to 18 months which has impacted two of our young people in unregistered placements.
“We have developed strong relationships with our preferred 16+ accommodation providers in the borough, and have first refusal when places become available, allowing us to transition young people into registered placements at the earliest opportunity.
“We will only place young people in unregistered placements when all registered options have been exhausted.
“This is not always a straight forward process, as placing a young person with a registered provider can sometimes mean they have to move outside of Barnsley, which can impact on relationships with family and friends, and their education.
“During a young person’s placement in an unregistered home, we increase the frequency of social worker visits from every six weeks to every week.
“We also have increased oversight from the independent reviewing officer and the commissioning service who visit the home to undertake a quality assurance audit of its administrative processes.
“Each unregistered placement is notified to Ofsted, while our service director and Head of Service review each placement weekly for as long as the young person remains in that placement.”