Child safety 'not guaranteed' in Rochdale care homes, says Council Leader

Councillor Colin Lambert

The leader of Rochdale Borough Council says children should no longer be sent to care homes in the borough because their safety "is not being guaranteed", Councillor Colin Lambert told BBC Radio 4.

Councillor Lambert says the council has no say in what happens to children in homes who come from outside Rochdale. He said he has been worried about the safety of young people in care for some time: "When you have got as many homes in an authority the size of Rochdale you are grouping together, in a small population, a large number of children who are vulnerable and that is an issue."

Most of Rochdale's 41 children's homes are privately run, and the borough has considerably more homes than other areas of England with comparable populations - the London Borough of Haringey has nine homes, while Solihull in the West Midlands has just two.

The government says children in care should live within their local authority wherever possible.

Currently, of around 60 young people living in Rochdale's homes, only one child is originally from the borough.

It is good practice for local authorities to inform social services in another region that they are sending a child to live in a home in the area, but the responsibility for the child's care remains with the home authority. This is a source of frustration for Mr Lambert: "Unless the child is from the Borough of Rochdale we have no say in whether the child should be here, whether the home is providing what it should [and] we get no reports back on how the child is progressing."

"It is a scar and a disgrace on this country's record of caring for vulnerable children."