What area of public spending provides the worst value for money? I admit it is a highly competitive field. But I have long concluded that children in care (or “looked after children”) must be the outstanding candidate – combining extraordinary levels of spending with disastrous outcomes. Most of these children could and should be taken out of the care system and placed for adoption in stable loving homes – something that would be transformational for their life chances. Despite the noble ambitions of David Cameron and Michael Gove in 2010 this has not been achieved. Indeed it has got worse. There are now 83,840 children in care. In 2010 it was 64,400.
One added strain on the system comes from asylum-seeker children. According to the Department for Education:
“The latest published information shows that the number of Children Looked After in England increased by 2% between 2021 and 2022, continuing recent years’ trend. In 2023-24 planned net expenditure on CLA is £6.1 billion, a 13.5% increase from 2022-23. Expenditure on CLA consistently forms the largest proportion of LA spending on children’s and young people’s services. It represents 53.7% of this expenditure in 2023-24, slightly higher than in 2022-23 (52.6%). Planned net expenditure increased across all categories for CLA, with the largest rises seen in asylum seeker children (71.7%), residential care (19.7%) and leaving care support services (14.7%). The latest data published by the Home Office, shows an increase in the number of unaccompanied asylum seeker children applications between 2021 and 2022.”
It is quite frequent for local authorities to put children who are unaccompanied asylum seekers in “unregulated placements” – whether unregistered children‘s homes or semi-independent living accommodation. Usually, these will be children aged between 16 and 18. But sometimes under 16. The unregistered children‘s homes are defined as providing care as well as support – but are not officially registered. Unregulated semi-independent living accommodation is defined as providing support rather than care. The Government can issue as many regulations as it likes. If councils can’t find placements that comply with the requirements then they shrug and put the children somewhere that doesn’t. But even these unregulated placements are very expensive.
Via Freedom of Information requests, I have attempted to discover the scale of this practice and the cost. Some councils responded with the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in care in unregulated accommodation but said they did not have the figures for the cost of these placements. Here are some of the responses:
- Doncaster Council has 10 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who are living independently. They added that the average annual cost for children in care placed in unregistered children’s homes for the financial year 2022/23 is £91,549.12 while the average annual cost for children in care placed in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation for the financial year 2022/23 is £103,485.20.
- Powys: 12 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £135,057; for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £124,713.
- Carmarthenshire: 23 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £306,884.96.
- Hounslow: 53 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children – including 2 under 16. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £36,400.
- Flintshire: 23 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
- Milton Keynes: 35 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £842,000; for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £48,000.
- Islington: 18 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £45,406.
- Oldham: 24 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £50,000, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £69,492.
- South Gloucestershire: 58 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £18,092.
- Bedford: 16 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £93,363.40, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £87.539.40.
- Derby: five unaccompanied asylum-seeking children including 4 aged under 16. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £888,614.83, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £49,422.03.
- Slough: 21 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £21,315.
- Shropshire: 40 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £52,847.
- Swansea: seven unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £67,524.
- Redcar & Cleveland: 18 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
- Central Bedfordshire: four unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, including one under 16. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £170,726.98.
- Dorset: 15 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £211,167, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £113,075.
- Westmorland and Furness: 21 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £86,197.
- Kent: 26 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £377,544, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £60,899.
- Southampton: 22 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
- Buckinghamshire: 28 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, including two under 16. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £347,518.
- Worcestershire: 36 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £437,789, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £51,006.
- Barnsley: 14 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £198,429.
- Newcastle: six unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £832,102.
- Leicestershire: 19 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Average annual cost for a child in an unregistered children’s home £60,077, for a child in unregulated semi-independent living accommodation £22,036.
These unregulated institutional placements should be of great concern. How well looked after are the children? What are the risks of them joining criminal gangs? Yet the costs of some of these unregistered children’s homes are astonishing. An average of £888,614.83 for a child annually in Derby. £842,000 in Miton Keynes. £832,102 in Newcastle.
Obviously, this is part of the social and economic cost of a failure to control our borders. But it is also an indictment of municipal mismanagement. Why is there not a greater effort made to find foster or adoption placements for more of these children? The greater legal and practical complexities result in greater bureaucratic inertia for asylum seeking children. That might be understandable. But a greater effort is needed to overcome them.
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Author: Harry Phibbs
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