Councils Placing More 16- To 17-Year-Olds In Semi-Independent Care Than In Children’s Homes
Semi-independent supported accommodation was legalised for 16-year-olds in 2023 (Alamy)
4 min read
Local authorities in England are placing more vulnerable children aged 16 and 17 in semi-independent accommodation than children of all ages in residential homes with full-time care.
More than 10,000 children aged 16 and 17 were placed in semi-independent “supported accommodation” by English councils last year, overtaking the number of children of all ages living in traditional residential homes, according to new data obtained by The House magazine.
The findings, from a survey of more than 100 local authorities, expose the speed at which semi-independent placements have become embedded in the children’s care system despite growing concerns over safety and weak regulation.
In 2024, a government snapshot recorded just 2,730 children in such settings on 31 March. Since providers have applied to register more than 20,000 placements since 2023, the numbers for 2025 are expected to rise even further.
Supported accommodation – legalised for 16-year-olds in 2023 – offers advice and light-touch support rather than full-time care. It can include bedsits, shared hostels with adults, and, in some cases, caravans and boats. Providers are prohibited from offering the kind of wrap-around care found in children’s homes or foster placements.
Campaigners have condemned the trend as “scandalous”, and children’s minister Josh MacAlister admitted the scale of isolation faced by teenagers in these settings is “not good enough”. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently told Sky News she would not put her own children in these arrangements.
Carolyne Willow, a barrister and children’s rights advocate who challenged the policy in court, said: “We warned this would become the norm, and these figures show it has. We are fast getting to a place where the children’s care system as we know it, with parental-style care and protection, ends when a child turns 16.
“Local authorities are required to first assess a child aged 16 or 17 as capable of living with a high degree of independence before they put them in this care-less accommodation. Instead it is being used as a matter of routine to plug gaps in finance and provision.”
Ofsted inspections have already exposed widespread failings. Only a few dozen of the 1,600 or so providers offering 20,200 newly registered supported placements have so far been inspected by Ofsted, yet half of those visited were judged substandard or failing. Inspectors found missing bedroom doors, mattresses on floors, widespread on-site drug use, children recruited into criminal gangs and staff hired without any training or criminal record checks.
It is likely that intensely-pressured council finances are contributing to overuse of this option. The House’s research, based on answers to Freedom of Information requests, has found that children’s homes, which are largely privately-run, have increased their charges by a fifth in just over a year since our last survey to £6,615 a week, costing five times more than supported accommodation.
A National Audit Office report warned earlier this year that nearly half of England’s councils face bankruptcy. Children’s residential care spending, which has almost doubled in just five years, is one of the main factors driving them to the brink.
Education Select Committee chair Helen Hayes, who led the inquiry into children’s care currently moving through Parliament, said the data obtained by The House “paints a shocking picture of the state’s ability to keep vulnerable young people safe and meet their basic needs”.
She called for the government to develop a strategy to ensure there is a sufficient stock of suitable accommodation for looked-after children, and to follow the recommendation of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and introduce universal standards of care that apply to all homes.
MacAlister said the government is investing £2.4bn in the Families First Partnership programme to try to keep families together and will be setting out details of how it plans to expand care available and increase safeguards.
“But there is much more to do, as this investigation shows. Far too many teenagers in care are being left isolated in accommodation that isn’t good enough,” he adds.
“Making sure children in care have loving homes to grow up in is a personal priority for me and the government.”
