MP's bill aims to ensure children in care stay close to home

While councils are legally required to provide accommodation within their local areas for any children they look after, many are moved outside the local authority due to systemic pressures or a lack of appropriate homes.

In 2023, more than a fifth of children in care in England were living more than 20 miles from home and that number has increased by 62 per cent in the last decade.

Last year, 55pc of all children under the care of Rotherham Council were living out of the area, and of the 448 children under the care of the authority, 203 were children from other local authorities.

Children moved from their community risk being disconnected from friends, family and the people that matter to them as well as facing disruption to their education and relationships, said Mr Richards.

His private members bill would make it a legal requirement for local authorities and the Department of Education to collect and publish data about the extent to which the sufficiency duty is being achieved, how many children in care are living in placements that don’t meet their needs or are more than 20 miles from home due to a lack of appropriate local placements.

Authorities would also have to develop and publish sufficiency plans setting out what steps they are taking to meet their requirements under the Children Act 1989 and the bill would stop them moving the children they look after to inappropriate distance placements.

The bill will formally be introduced tomorrow, with a debate likely to take place sometime next year. It would have to be approved by MPs and peers before it becomes law.

Mr Richards said: “Local authorities have an obligation to make sure children in care are found new homes within their local areas. However, with the financial pressures our councils face after 14 years of Conservative vandalism, this isn’t always the case. More and more children are being moved away from their homes, with profound consequences for their relationships and education. Quite simply, the current care system is not fit for purpose.

“My bill would make it a legal requirement for local authorities to collect and publish data about how many children in care are living in placements far from home, as well as their plans for providing sufficiency of placements to meet the needs of children in their area. We need this transparency to make sure children in care are not having their childhoods, relationships and education skewed by under the radar relocations to places miles away home.”