NCERCC CHIEF – Evaluation of Government response to Education Select Committee report – October 2025

A Children’s Homes Information and Evidence Fact checker document

NCERCC – independent experts in Residential Child Care and its planning.

NCERCC – independent of governments, local authorities and providers.

NCERCC are experienced knowledgeable informed expert with decades of experience in children’s social care theory and practice, policy and research

Evaluation October 2025

Government Response to the Education Committee report: Children’s social care

Children’s social care: Government Response

Re Recommendation 19:

The government focus on sufficiency is about numbers not needs, this would require a strategy of specificity, of recognising children can, and do, have multiple co-occurring needs. The current descriptors, such emotional, behavioural, mental health, disability, are too broad, they allow for matching of need to provision to be far too random.

A strategy of specificity is needed. Whilst this seems recognised in the government response, “Where care is necessary, it is vital that children are placed in homes that meet their needs, in the right location and at the right time”, there is no programme to achieve specificity.

Regional Care Cooperatives will only be able to forecast and plan (though it must be observed markets have not responded to higher level needs) if there is detailed assessment of need. In the government response it is said it cannot be done.  However, NCERCC conducted a needs analysis for a local authority and created a local needs-led plan. It can be done (see here – Written evidence from Jonathan Stanley, Principal partner at National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC) (CSC 142)).  Clearly it is possible to establish a “strategy (that) would be responsive enough to children’s needs at a local level…”  It is to be observed that markets and planned provision.

Though there are new local authority homes being developed and opened the Education Select Committee and Public Accounts Committee are well placed to enquire why it is that it is that some are actually run by private and voluntary providers not the local authority themselves. This diverts from a workforce development strategy and does not seem as intended more generally in developing social goods in common ownership. Further, Ofsted include such homes in their figures as local authority homes but in operation they are not. This is misleading.  Positive outcomes are noted by local authorities with their own provision including heightened family reintegration achieved through involvement being possible with the family.

Re Recommendation 20:

One region has aggregated placements inside and outside its borders. There is then an existing example of collecting ” data on the proportion of children who are placed out of area”.

Specificity arrived at through assessment of need would enable monitoring whilst also creating the data for the establishing of homes to meet specific multiple and co-occurring needs, and the knowledge and practice and type of delivery needed for appropriate workforce development.

Specificity will spotlight current deficits in provision. These deficits will take time to remedy and come with costs; however, a needs-led workforce is essential. The current workforce thinking seems not to be towards developing the workforce as highly informed and skilled. There are examples of workforce development that are needs-led and thorough. They are based on the recognition that such workforce development must be longer than now, at higher level than level 3, and address career development into practice leadership and management (these level 5 qualifications and development need a thorough renewal too).

If foster carers or families/kinship are to replace residential care they too will require this level of knowledge and practice, support, supervision, and integration with education and health. It is of concern that the conceptualisation of the work needed is considerably beyond that set out by government.

Re Regulation 26:

The demand for children’s homes places has risen year on year, needs of children are multiple, co-occurring and high, likely higher than appropriate for foster care placement. An Ofsted report observed children’s homes with children whose plan was for fostering.  The reason is multifactorial, including; a lack of foster care, numbers are declining; and aged or aspirational social work assessment. Children experience instability and insecurity through rising through a hierarchy of need rather than right place first time.

Government must be watching Wales as it seeks to eliminate profit results in private providers exiting. Voluntary organisations are not stepping forwards, and do not readily have the knowledge and skills and numbers of experienced staff to meet high level needs

Government states in its response it is “acutely aware of the importance of not destabilising the market and risking significant disruption to the care our most vulnerable children and young people receive”.

It cannot be too strongly observed that the situation is precarious.

No measures to drive down profits have been made public. As such we cannot know the risks and cannot offer scrutiny. Parliament has been given too little information upon which to make a policy decision. Parliament has not scrutinised aspects of current proposals regarding residential child care. This makes the situation more precarious.

Current profit limiting proposals are clumsy and inflexible. Other means of achieving goals, especially others that can be applied EBIDA, need to be explored and made public for scrutiny.

The government could claim its concern for the “capacity and the diversity of provision available”, if “work that we are doing on data and cost transparency of placements” included assessment and aggregation of need. Until there is this forensic detail we cannot safely plan, and policy will be insecure and insufficient.  It not wise to press ahead and the legislation, like that of SEND, should be paused so as not to create a situation that would further disadvantage vulnerable children.

Re Recommendation 42:

The government response regarding management of children’s homes does not address leadership. It is the capacity for informed leadership that is necessary to be achieved.

Improving the profile of residential child care is urgent.  It must include the Minister for Children desists in the use of the term ‘institutional’ when describing children’s homes as he did at a fringe event at Labour conference (see video published by him following). This terminology runs counter to homes being ‘homely’ as in the Quality Standards and as inspected by Ofsted. Ministerial championing of residential options for children needs to be consistently robustly asserted.

Re Recommendation 43:

There are already minimum qualification standards for residential child care workers.

The question is are these fit for the purpose of creating the workforce to meet the needs of children as described by the work on DOLS by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. Both government and select committee are pitching their evaluation of what is needed far too low. In other countries work in children’s homes requires a degree and is highly regarded as being the equivalent of social work.

The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC) (NCERCC) advocates for a needs-led approach to developing children’s homes, which requires a comprehensive assessment of a child’s needs as the basis for placement decisions. This model is a response to the limitations of the current market-led approach, which has resulted in a lack of specific capacity and insufficient, inappropriate placements. Instead of a focus on “sufficiency,” NCERCC emphasizes “specificity,” arguing that the primary task of a residential child care (RCC) is to provide the right home for a child’s specific needs, leading to better outcomes. 

Key principles of the NCERCC model:

• Needs-led planning:

The development of new children’s homes should be driven by a regional needs audit and robust forecasting of what specific provision is required, rather than what providers can offer based on existing knowledge.

• Comprehensive assessment:

Placement decisions should be based exclusively on a thorough assessment of the child’s individual needs. This includes considering the impact on the existing children in a home and assessing the child’s personal needs, including their emotional and mental health.

• Assessment of the family:

The assessment process should also include the family, recognising the need for emotional support and a reciprocal relationship to help them share their feelings and anxieties.

• Increased specificity:

The goal is to create a diverse range of homes to meet specific needs, which in turn makes matching easier and reduces inappropriate placements and waiting times.

• Regional cooperation:

NCERCC proposes Regional Care Co-operatives (RCCs) ensure that all homes in a region are included in the planning and provision process, regardless of ownership.

• Workforce development:

A key component is investing in sustained workforce development to ensure staff have the necessary skills and knowledge, with training and experience requirements being established for the region.

Challenges with the current market-led system

• Insufficient provision:

The current system does not have enough capacity to meet all needs, leading to inappropriate waits and temporary placements.

• Mismatch in provision:

Providers create homes based on their existing knowledge, rather than what is needed, resulting in a lack of diversity and gaps in provision.

• Transactional approach:

The current focus on market-based commissioning often leads to a transactional rather than child-centred approach.