DfE confirms plans to regulate supported accommodation

Publishing its response to a public consultation on the proposals, which closed in January, DfE confirmed it would go ahead with plans to make registration of providers with Ofsted compulsory.

Providers which have not applied to register with the inspectorate by 26 October this year, will be committing an offence, the document states.

• Unregulated accommodation for 16- and 17-year-olds cannot be normalised

• Put end to unregulated provision for under-18s, urge campaigners

It also confirms that plans for a three-yearly inspection cycle of settings which provide accommodation, but not care, for older teenagers, will go-ahead after receiving support from 61 per cent of consultation respondents. 

“Ofsted will be piloting inspections later this year to develop their approach and guidance ahead of inspections beginning from April 2024,” the consultation response states.

It also highlights a handful of changes to national quality standards, which will be introduced in October and form the basis of Ofsted’s inspection regime.

Changes include the removal of compulsory levels of training for staff, including service managers.

“Instead of recommending specific qualifications for registered service managers, we will be including a requirement in the regulations that registered service managers have appropriate experience which must include two years’ experience in a position relevant to residential support of children or adults, within the previous five years,” the document states.

It adds: “We will also not be setting mandatory qualification requirements for staff working in supported accommodation. However, we still expect relevant qualifications to be taken into account when providers and managers are considering the fitness of prospective staff and their training under their workforce plans.”

The government has also agreed to remove a quality standard requiring all staff working in such settings to be trained in restraint techniques.

It confirms that the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) has been awarded a £750k contract to oversee the implementation of the standards.

Minister for children, families and wellbeing Claire Coutinho, said: “I am determined that this kind of accommodation comes up to the same high standard across the country, which will help give children a better chance of success in the future.

“The new regulations are a vital step in achieving our ambition to transform children’s social care with radically improved standards and outcomes, as set out recently in our plan for children’s social care.”

Some 236 organisations and individuals responded to the consultation, which was held over the Christmas period, as well as 64 care-experienced young people.

Respondents were asked if they agreed with the proposals around Ofsted enforcement powers, 78 per cent agreed, 16 per cent  selected ‘not sure’ and six per cent selected ‘no’. 

Just over three-fifths of respondents agreed that the proposed approach to ensuring provider adherence to the quality standards and the regulations across the service was the right one. Just over a fifth of respondents were ‘not sure’ and 17 per cent  selected ‘no’ they did not agree.

The use of unregulated supported accommodation, which can include hostels, hotels and caravans and does not provide care for young people, was banned for under-16s in September 2021.

In its response to concerns over the use of such inappropriate settings for children aged 16 and 17, DfE states: “We are clear that non-permanent or mobile settings including caravans, barges and boats are almost always highly unlikely to meet the needs of young people. We have not taken the approach of banning such settings outright, as in very rare and exceptional circumstances such settings might be appropriate to meet the needs of a young person.”

Campaigners, led by children’s rights charity Article 39, have long-called for settings which do not provide care to be banned for all children as part of the #KeepCaringto18 campaign.

Carolyne Willow, director of Article 39, said in response to government plans to press ahead with its proposals for regulation: “This is a major, structural and ideological change to children's care system. For decades, government policy has progressively moved towards care system emulating what happens in loving families. Not now.”

Latest government statistics, also released today, show that in the year to 31 March last year, there were 7,370 children in care aged 16 and 17 living independently or in semi independent accommodation.

This is equivalent to over a third of all looked-after children aged 16 to 17.

Of all children aged 16 and 17 living in such settings in the same time period, more than 40 per cent were unaccompanied asylum seeking children, figures show.