MP’s warned care reforms are failing vulnerable children (Public Accounts Committee)
The Children’s Homes Association (CHA) has told MPs that government reforms are on course to fail the most vulnerable children in England, warning of a “looming care crisis” that will negatively impact both children and council taxpayers.
CHA CEO Dr. Mark Kerr presented what he describes as “the most comprehensive evidence yet of the residential childcare crisis” at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Inquiry on Monday 17th November, having submitted written evidence (attached) in advance. CHA’s evidence demonstrates how the lack of a national plan for specialist residential care has left councils scrambling for emergency placements, pushing up costs, and creating a “stealth tax on every household” as council tax bills will rise due to flawed policy changes.
Dr Mark Kerr said ministers are repeating decades of mistakes by marginalising residential care while pursuing “unworkable, headline-driven policies” such as the proposed profit cap on care providers, which the association argues are “political window dressing that will deter investment and reduce quality” and that “the public are unaware of the financial impact this will have”.
The CHA’s evidence calls for a National Residential Strategy focused on children with the most complex and high-risk needs, alongside a cross-government funding settlement to ensure those departments that benefit from better outcomes also share the costs. It urges ministers to replace the profit cap with transparency-based market oversight, fix Ofsted registration delays and planning blockages, and introduce a pricing framework that properly reflects staffing intensity and therapeutic complexity rather than relying on what it calls “black-box pricing tools.”
“Residential care has been sidelined for decades,” said Dr Mark Kerr, CEO of the CHA. “If ministers don’t act now, we’ll see more children failed, more emergency placements, and more public money wasted. The system is heading for a managed decline — unless Parliament intervenes - and the consequence will be higher council tax for every household.”
CHA’s evidence also highlights the negative impact of oversimplified criticism of private providers and the government’s questionable approach to managing the market:
“Government scrutiny is falling in the wrong place,” Dr Kerr said. “The focus of reform should be on the tax-haven-based and sovereign-wealth-fund-owned providers that dominate parts of the market, not the small practitioner-run homes that hold the expertise and quality we need more of. It’s a sad reality that we regulate the ownership of football clubs and newspapers more closely than the services caring for our most vulnerable children. Meanwhile, the Chancellor appears committed to supporting the very private-equity model that’s extracting value from the system.”
Dr Kerr’s written evidence on behalf of The CHA, a 3000-word document starting with a 2-page executive summary, providing detailed, data-informed analysis from across the sector, was submitted on 3rd November in advance of the 17th November hearing.