Rise in number of children’s homes ranked good or better

There’s been a rise in the number of children’s homes rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted according to latest quarterly figures.

The data is a piece of good news in what has been a difficult six months for the sector with government ministers claiming children’s homes are “failing” and savage council cuts hitting contracts.

Almost two thirds (65%) of the 419 homes inspected between April and June this year were rated as good or better, an increase of five percentage points compared with the same period last year. The figures also recorded a slight drop in the number of homes rated inadequate in the same period, down from 8% to 6%.

Children’s homes in the South West of England were generally better than the rest of the country with 77% ranked good or better, compared with the West Midlands where only 55% were.

The data showed local authority children’s homes were, on average, better than privately run children’s homes, although there are twice as many privately run homes included in the data.

There are also significant differences between regions. While 100% of local authority run homes were ranked good or better in East Anglia, compared with only 52% of privately-run homes; in the South West 79% of privately run homes were ranked good or better, compared with 70% of council run homes.

The figures follow a Community Care survey, published earlier this month, which found that almost 70% of children’s homes providing specialist care felt they did not get enough funding from councils to provide the very best care

Almost a third (30%) of the 62 respondents said they could only afford to provide ‘adequate’ care, while 35% said they could provide ‘good’ care. But 3% felt they could not even provide adequate care with the funding they receive.

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