National unit for secure children's home placements to be created
Neil Puffett
Monday, April 4, 2016
A local authority is to be handed national responsibility for co-ordinating placements of children in secure homes, children's minister Edward Timpson has said.
In a letter to local government leaders, Timpson said that the Department for Education plans to bring greater co-ordination to the way that local authorities place children into secure homes by supporting Hampshire County Council to establish a new “co-ordinating point” for placements.
“Decisions on where a child is placed will remain, as they are now, with the placing local authority and the secure home receiving the child,” Timpson said.
“The unit will remove some of the administrative difficulties and delays from phoning around multiple homes, multiple times to secure a vacancy.
“The unit will also provide a mechanism for gathering and sharing much-needed data on overall demand for places, flows into and out of the system and on the characteristics and needs of the looked-after children involved.”
The move follows an announcement last May that the government was keen to commission secure children’s home places on a national basis.
In Timpson’s letter he said that further data gathering and detailed cost modelling is needed “before we could commit to major structural change”.
He added that it “makes sense” that any long-term changes are considered alongside two ongoing reviews – Charlie Taylor’s review into youth justice, and Sir Martin Narey’s review into residential care.
As a result the unit in Hampshire, which is due to open in May, will run for an initial 18 months pending any long-term changes.
The letter also reveals that the DfE has committed £9.8m over the next four years – £1.4m in 2016/17, followed by £2.8m each year for the next three years – to support the development of the evidence-based model of care for children and young people with complex mental health needs.
Meanwhile, DfE officials will work with councils and the sector to develop a short programme of support and capacity building for secure homes early in 2016/17 in order to build capacity for the most hard-to-place young people.
Homes will be invited to bid for funding, identifying what additional, tailored capacity-building activities, including specialist staff training, would add value to their home and its ability to respond to the highest needs children.
