The Youth Justice Board has announced that as of 1 April 2016 it will commission 117 beds compared with the current 138 – a reduction of 15.2 per cent.
The decision to commission 21 fewer places – which cost in the region of £220,000 a year each – is set to save the YJB around £4.6m a year.
News of the fresh cuts comes just a month after the YJB rubber-stamped £9m of emergency in-year cuts to the budgets of youth offending teams for the current 2014/15 financial year.
The YJB said the latest cut in provision was down to "the continued fall in the number of children in custody".
Lin Hinnigan, chief executive of the Youth Justice Board, said: "The YJB is committed to maintaining the secure children’s homes sector to accommodate children for whom it is appropriate provision.
"The welcome reduction in the number of children in custody has allowed us to review the current provision of secure children’s homes places to better match supply and demand.
"The YJB will continue to place children into the secure estate using our existing criteria for placements which are driven by the needs of the individual. Those that need to be placed in a secure children’s home will be."
Secure children's home places have been reduced significantly in recent years. Last year the YJB cut the number of places it commissions from 166 to 138.
Two years before, in 2012, the number of beds commissioned was reduced from 183 to 166. In 2002 there were 274 places.
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