Children with particularly complex needs, including those who are at significant risk of causing harm to themselves or others, including risk to life, can be placed in a secure children’s home when no other type of placement would keep them safe. There is a significant shortage of national secure children’s home provision as highlighted by OfSTED and London has no provision. The numbers of children placed are small, but the placements expensive. Further, where places are not available, the alternatives, often requiring multiple ratios of staff for each child, are amongst the costliest placements for children’s services. For example, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) recently highlighted more than twenty local authorities paying over £20K per week (equivalent to £1 million per year) and one case of £49,680 per week (equivalent to over £2 million per year).

There are few children requiring secure welfare provision and in the last eight months to July 2022 the numbers per local authority in London ranged from zero to three, with further children being referred but unable to be placed because of a lack of availability.

There is an opportunity now to develop and establish secure children’s home (SCH) provision in London to bring additional capacity to the market, with funds provided by the Department for Education, but this requires a Pan-London approach.

It is proposed that a company, owned by London local authorities, should be established to oversee the build, and contribute to the development of the operating model for the new SCH provision, as well as the commissioning arrangements to run the service. The PLV will be a means to share the risks and benefits associated with developing and running the SCH, with a key benefit being that places at the new provision will be prioritised for the London local authorities who opt in to join the PLV.

In the long term, it is intended that the PLV’s remit will include other key pan-London commissioning arrangements that will improve the lives of London’s children and young people.