As Alice Thursfield explained in her article earlier this year, unregistered children’s homes are illegal. Anyone who operates a children’s home and provides care and accommodation “wholly or mainly” to children in a location that is not registered with Ofsted is committing a criminal offence.

The registration process ensures that children’s homes across the country meet specific standards, designed to safeguard the welfare of the vulnerable children who are placed there.

Unfortunately, placements for children in care are in significant shortage and local authorities across the country are regrettably dependent, in some circumstances, on placing children in unregulated settings. Such homes can often be several counties away from where that child might ordinarily reside and are usually run by private companies, without regulatory oversight from Ofsted. A recent Court hearing heard that an unregistered and therefore illegal children’s home on the Isle of Wight was receiving £29,000 a week from the local authority.

Local authorities are not legally obligated to inform Ofsted when they place children in unregistered children’s homes, and so statistics on this may be misleading and underestimating the true figures. Between April 2023 and March 2024 alone, Ofsted reviewed over 1,000 cases of potentially unregistered settings and found that over 900 of these were indeed unregistered children’s homes.

Case Study: Barking and Dagenham Council

Unregulated children’s homes are not only illegal but are costing local authorities an astronomical amount for standard placements.

Barking and Dagenham Council has recently openly revealed that it has been spending £1.9 million per year  on accommodating 20 children that are deemed to be at high risk of harm, either to themselves or others. The council admitted in a recent report that it was reliant on “placements in unregistered / inappropriate registered provisions”.

The council is now seemingly pushing back against its reliance on such placements and has received a provisional offer of £5.4 million from the Department of Education, on top of its £11 million capital investment over the next decade, to build new and, most importantly, registered properties for the most vulnerable children in society. The Department of Education has confirmed that it is going to match fund the capital portion of the investment.

Seven properties are planned to be developed and designed into three new residential homes for the most at-risk children in the area. Plans have been approved for the new homes to house up to 16 children, aged 11-17, at a time.

It has been reported that this is a big step towards providing safe, regulated, and specialised care for children with complex needs and at the highest risk of exploitation and abuse. This also may ensure that children that live in the local authority have a better chance of staying in the local area, rather than resorting to placing children in unregulated accommodation across the country, proving not only costly but also unsettling, unfamiliar, and unsupportive for the child themselves. This way, vulnerable children are also more likely to retain the same social worker, and any familiar medical professionals.

Protecting Vulnerable Children

The new homes are also intending to provide accommodation for children that are subject to a Deprivation of Liberty Order (DoLS). This is an order that deprives children of their liberty, movements, or actions, when they lack the mental capacity to make certain decisions about their care or treatment. These children could be subject to constant supervision and control, and Ofsted highlights how these are “some of the most vulnerable children in care”, and how these children “should not be placed in settings with no regulatory or independent oversight”.

Children subject to a DoLS might also be subject to an increased level of restraint, or physical intervention – arguably furthering the need for regulatory oversight and ensuring that children are cared for in as safe a manner as possible.

This is off the back of Ofsted’s investigation in 2024, where it was discovered that 12% of children in unregistered locations were subject to a DoLS.  These children will require the highest level of informed care, and a safe and secure environment to live in.

A 2023 study by Nuffield Family Justice Observatory found that the average placement for children subject to a DoLS was more than 55 miles from the child’s original home. The Barking and Dagenham initiative therefore allows greater security for vulnerable and traumatised children; that is security in guaranteeing that children can remain close to their communities and not be isolated in settings such as hotels or even caravans, but also security in the regulated care they will receive.

How We Can Help

If you are a provider that operates an unregulated service for children, we strongly urge you to seek legal advice. Operating a children’s home that is not registered with Ofsted is illegal and can result in severe consequences. The first step that an unregistered provider usually encounters with Ofsted is a warning letter, stating that the provider must stop operating their children’s home, and that they need to apply for registration.

Furthermore, if you are operating an unregistered service and provide care to a child under a DoLS, it is important to understand that the DoLS Order itself only makes the restrictions on the child’s liberty lawful; not the running of the setting itself. The Courts can refuse to authorise a DoLS if the provider is not registered.

We are an experienced team of Ofsted solicitors, with thorough awareness and extensive experience of advising childcare providers across the country. Please get in touch for assistance in applying to register your children’s home as a matter of urgency, or for any other related enquiries.