Three quarters of children in children's homes are from outside the area - says MP

Up to three quarters of children living in children's homes in Greater Manchester come from outside the region according to Stockport MP Ann Coffey.

She's been telling the Commons that the interests of vulnerable children are not being given as high a priority as financial considerations.

The MP describes children’s homes market as a ‘continuing catastrophic failure’ for some young people with increasing numbers still being forced to live miles away.

Ann Coffey, MP for Stockport, says a third of children in children’s homes are still being sent to live more than 20 miles away from home and that the figures have actually gone up despite efforts to reduce them.

She said the children’s home’s market was ‘chaotic’ for some children and was run in the interests of providers – including private equity and venture capital companies - not in the interests of vulnerable children.

The high number of out of area placements was caused by the unequal distribution of children’s homes thorough the country with all the homes concentrated in a few areas, she added.

For example, the North West has 25 per cent of all children’s homes in England but only 15% of the children’s homes population. London has only 6 per cent of children’s homes but 17 per cent of the children’s homes population.

There are some authorities in England that have no children’s homes at all.

Ms Coffey said that she hoped that Sir Martin Narey’s forthcoming review of children’s homes will recognise that reducing distances should be at the heart of reforms and therefore action is needed to tackle the unequal geographical distribution of Children’s Homes.

She also called on the 10 local Manchester boroughs to use Devo-Manc to work together and to form a consortium to address how they can best look after children in children’s homes through the conurbation.

Rochdale, which has a high number of children’s homes in Greater Manchester, placed 41% of its children inside the local authority area. It placed 18% of children more than 20 miles away while in the children’s homes in the borough 71% of the places went to children from outside the area and of those 45% were from outside Greater Manchester.

In Stockport, which also has a high number of homes, by contrast 88% of their children were placed within the LA boundary, but again they only accounted for 36% of the local children’s homes places, 64% were from other LA areas and of those 28% came from outside the GMP force area.

Private and independent providers dominate in both boroughs. In Rochdale the majority of the private providers are homes containing just one or two placements, while in Stockport the homes are larger and there has been a long relationship with the Together Trust, a voluntary sector organisation.

Ms Coffey says in terms of distance and familiarity with an area a child from Bury placed in Stockport will feel a long way from home in a place that feels unfamiliar and may respond by going missing.

GMP calculate that missing children in Greater Manchester cost the police up to £30.9 million per year, and there are additional difficulties in keeping children safe when information needs to be passed across police boundaries.