Call to tackle 'obscene' care home profits after firm charged '£48,000 for weekend accommodation'
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 7:16 am
Councillors question £7m overspend at education scrutiny meeting
More needs to be done to tackle a ‘broken placement market’ for children in care. That is the message from Coventry City Council’s cabinet member for children and young people after hearing about some of the fees charged by children’s homes.
The latest finance and corporate services scrutiny board meeting questioned a £7m overspend against placements for children in care relating to the use of external residential children’s homes and high-cost spot placements.
Cllr Jayne Innes [pictured] said: “I remember a case of a child who needed emergency accommodation over a weekend and a company charged £48,000. I thought ‘how can they justify that?’ Racketeering comes to mind. It is not just a local problem but, having said that, to be £7m out in your forecast when you know that that particular area is broken is something that we need to be anticipating – it is quite a big gap.”
At the education and children’s services scrutiny board meeting the following day Angela Whitrick, the council’s strategic lead for corporate parenting and sufficiency said the government was taking action but the pace of those changes was proving a challenge.
She added: “We all know that the placement market as it is currently called is broken and the research continues to shows that there are significant profits being made by private organisations in relation to providing care for children. We face significant challenges in finding the right home in the right place and at the right time.
"We are in the process of opening more children’s homes, we have seven and have two more in the pipeline which are proposed to open in the spring. There has been an increase nationally but 84 per cent of those are in private organisations and the size of children’s homes is decreasing.
“The challenge we have is that there are other areas in the country such as London who have fewer children’s home who have children who cannot be safely cared for in London so they get moved somewhere else. The challenge is trying to ensure that Coventry children go to Coventry homes. We have to get it right for our children.”
Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduced earlier this year, new laws are being brought in to increase the transparency of private providers over their finances. There will also be a backstop provision to introduce a profit cap if providers don’t voluntarily bring an end to exploitative practices.
Cabinet member Cllr Pat Seaman said: “The pressure is on the placement costs and the profiteering that is being made nationally. I’m not against people making profits, I am against people making obscene profits.”
