CYP Now - Commissioning Care: Key policy developments

Ofsted’s annual report highlighted ongoing issues with insufficient availability of care places despite more children’s homes and places coming on stream in the year to March 2023. For council commissioners, the key issue is being able to find a placement that meets a child’s needs within reasonable distance – rather than finding a placement per se.

Some experts say commissioners and providers need to work together to deliver cost-effective care placements. Picture: Nenadaksic/Adobe Stock

“In part, this is because homes, and particularly specialist homes, are not evenly spread across the country,” Ofsted’s annual report states.

“Homes continue to open disproportionately in the regions where numbers are already the highest. The distribution of homes, including new home openings, does not reflect the distribution of need.”

Around a quarter of all homes are in the North West, which was also the region where most new homes opened, whereas London has around half that rate. This is driven by economic factors and bears little correlation to demand for care placements and results in many children from the South of England being placed in settings in other regions.

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