Government cracks down on out-of-borough placements under sexual exploitation reforms

Ministers have put together a “task and finish group”, which has been asked to make urgent recommendations on the criteria that local authorities should have to satisfy before placing a child outside their home borough. The government will consult on changes in the autumn.

The group will also report on what councils should do to monitor the quality of care in homes in their locality, and will help develop “risk maps” for areas where there are high concentrations of children’s homes, to assess whether homes are located alongside hostels and other accommodation for adult offenders, or in areas where there is known to be a high level of prostitution.

Meanwhile, the group will consider how to develop a new data collection system, to resolve the “huge discrepancies” between local authority figures on children who go missing from care for more than 24 hours, and incidents reported to and recorded by the police.

To address this problem at a local level, the Department for Education has written to all local authorities asking them to urgently review their own records on children missing from care, in comparison with local police figures.

In addition, the government has ordered Ofsted to lift the regulations that stop children’s services telling the police and other agencies the location of care homes with immediate effect.

Ministers are also setting up a further expert working group to develop an action plan to drive up the quality of children’s homes, including the qualifications and skills of the workforce.

It will consider the location of homes, models of residential care home ownership, commissioning practice, therapeutic interventions, staff training on behaviour management, the use of restraint and the effectiveness of current arrangements to drive improvement across the sector.

The group will report to ministers by December, when they will set out a clear timetable for reform.

The government’s proposals to improve the children’s home system follow the publication of a report by the deputy children’s commissioner Sue Berelowitz – ordered last month after the sentencing of nine men who groomed and abused young girls in Rochdale.

Ministers asked her to report on emerging findings from her ongoing Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups inquiry, including recommendations on specific risks facing children living in care homes.

Her report found that looked-after children are disproportionately vulnerable to being groomed or sexually exploited, although the majority of known victims of sexual exploitation are not in care.

According to the report, some residential homes are specifically targeted by abusers, because “there is a constant flow of vulnerable children for perpetrators to exploit”.

It also warns that some children who are being sexually exploited are forced to “introduce” other children within homes to their abusers – as a result of being threatened.

Children’s minister Tim Loughton admitted that there are good children’s homes and excellent care workers, but “far too many of the most vulnerable children in society are being exposed to harm and danger”. ?

“It is completely unacceptable that existing rules are simply being ignored and that frankly, some local authorities and homes are letting down children by failing to act as a proper ‘parent’,” he said.

“We are setting out urgent, immediate steps to protect children in care and address all the weaknesses. These are big changes to a system which has been letting down too many children.

“We want to get rid of an ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ culture which sees residential care as a last resort, instead of protecting vulnerable young people and giving them the best possible start in life.”

Berelowitz added: “Children have told me of being abducted, threatened, serially raped and subjected to other forms of violence resulting in them feeling worthless and losing all sense of self respect.

“Tragically this is too often compounded by adults refusing to believe what is happening. They must be taken seriously if we are to uncover the truth and protect them; doubting them only reinforces their sense of despair and abandonment.”

The government has also published a progress report on the national Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation Action Plan launched in November 2011, which sets out ongoing work with the courts, police and social services to prosecute and jail abusers.