Some of Surrey’s looked after children placed as far away as Northumberland
Some of Surrey’s looked after children are being placed in a children’s home or unrelated foster family hundreds of miles away.
Seven out of ten Surrey kids in a children’s home are sent by Surrey County Council to live outside of their home county and some even as far as Cumbria or Northumberland, 350 miles and a six-hour drive away.
Of Surrey’s 1,026 looked after children, 483 of them (47 per cent) have had to move away from the place they know, according to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the LDRS.
The data also revealed of 124 children living in a children’s home, 87 (70 per cent) are potentially torn away from a support network and placed in a home outside Surrey, while 329 of Surrey’s 734 children in foster care (45 per cent) are fostered outside their home county.
Councillor Fiona Davidson (R4GV, Guildford South-East), a member of Surrey County Council’s children and families select committee, said: “It is extremely sad. It really worries me that we’re adding to the huge difficulties that looked after children already have.”
Cllr Davidson said more effort needed to go into recruiting closer foster families.
She said: “It’s very difficult when the family relationship – and a lot do have family relationships – are broken, which is what happens when you take children to live a long way from where they’ve grown up.
“What happens when they leave care? They’re adrift. They don’t have the structures to support them after having been placed in another part of the country.
“It should only happen where there are absolutely desperate circumstances that mean this is the only option. Sometimes it is for the good of the child but I imagine these are very few and far between.”
After those placed within Surrey the greatest number of looked after children are sent to Kent, West Sussex and Hampshire.
But between two and eight are placed in a children’s home in Cumbria or Lancashire.
There are also seven kids placed in Scotland or Wales, which the county council said are in placements matched to their needs.
A county council spokesperson said the problem was caused by an increase in the number of looked after children, which is a nationwide issue.
It does aim to increase the number of children living within Surrey and is “actively working towards achieving this”.
Between April 2020 and March 2021, the authority spent nearly £1.33million on developing children’s care homes within Surrey and this year’s budget has approved about four times as much, £5.54m.
He said: “Surrey County Council remains committed to improving the sufficiency of provision for looked after children in Surrey.
“Surrey has commenced a comprehensive strategic review of what is required by way of accommodation and is taking concrete steps to improve sufficiency.”
By relying on the external market, the county council is currently having to pay more.
It spent £10.48m on placing 474 children in council managed foster placements last year, but £11.65m to place around half this number of children in other foster placements.
The county council spokesperson said: “Surrey has an active recruitment campaign and was successful in recruiting additional foster carers in 2020/21 despite the national pandemic.”
They said the council is also committed to developing its internal children’s homes.
The Good Law Project, who successfully took the Cabinet Office to court earlier this year, is bringing a judicial review against Surrey County Council and four other authorities for their lack of in-house accommodation for looked after children.
It has crowdfunded nearly £44,000 for legal fees but needs to reach £75,000.