News

DISPATCHES: PROFITING FROM KIDS IN CARE

Channel 4

25 November

Star Rating: 3/5

I recalled a case of a boy placed in a private children's home where an independent inspector - contracted by the placing authority - arrived to review the care being offered as no social worker had time to do so, and found that the boy's day consisted of smoking dope and, er, that's it, writes Graham Hopkins.

A government inspector was also a mite concerned about the home, not least as he had been shot at by an air rifle. The placement was costing £1,500 a week. And that was nearly 10 years ago. The average today, apparently, is £2,500. There is, indeed, as one entrepreneur featured in this programme suggested, "a tremendous amount of money to be made at this game".

However, the revelations of this undercover investigation (huge fees, poor care, untrained, unchecked and unskilled staff), which, while still shocking, were worryingly unsurprising.

In social care we are used to finding the good being upstaged by documentaries about the bad, the ugly and the unscrupulous.

While not showing examples of good care, the undercover reporter did show tapes of appalling practice to a child care expert and then asked redundant questions such as "so what kind of example are they setting me?" (a bad one). And "should I have been left in that situation?" (no).

Dispatches was absolutely justified in exposing these charlatans. But, that said, it did seem to tarnish the whole private sector with the same blunt brush of sharp practice, and appeared to let the local authorities (who paid for all this "care") and inspectors (who regulate such care) off the hook.

Indeed, one local authority exposed in two of the four investigations said it was "very concerned by the issues raised and has already taken action to address them". So that's all right, then.