Hidden Children
Commonweal Housing has published a report, written by researchers at Public First, investigating the growing use of unregistered children’s homes in the UK, and the drivers for their increased use.
Read the Report
The issue
Commonweal Housing commissioned research into this area after hearing concerns of decommissioned supported housing facilities being used as unregistered (and therefore illegal) residential children’s care homes.
The use of illegal children’s homes has grown enormously, and is poorly understood (largely attributed to the limited data available):
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Cases of unregistered children’s homes rose by more than 370% between 2020/21 and 2024/25.
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Some individual placements are costing up to £40,000 per week.
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Senior practitioners reveal unregistered placements have gone from something that they might see “once every six months” to something that crosses their desk “at least once a week.” These placements typically involve extremely vulnerable children with complex needs.
The growth in of unregistered children’s homes usage is correlated with three long-term trends:
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Rising complexity – children are more likely to be involved with gangs, county lines, serious violence, exploitation, or experience severe mental health crises. Many have experiences going through the criminal justice and health sectors, or experiences with breakdowns at home or in placements.
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Shortage of specialist, secure and supported placements for those who pose/face serious risks
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Poor market incentives; taking on high-risk children may destabilise existing homes and harm Ofsted ratings meaning providers fear taking them on. Many would rather leave beds empty than accept a teenager linked to gangs, presenting extreme behaviour, or repeatedly going missing.
When homes give 28 days’ notice, or when children must leave a paediatric ward at short notice, councils may resort to organisations or placements operating outside the law. Even if they provide good-quality care, they are invisible to national regulators.
In practice, these settings may compromise a small local authority-staffed unit in a council house. Improvised settings are also common – children have been placed in Airbnbs, holiday lets, hotels or apartments, supervised by agency staff who may have minimal training. 2:1 staffing ratios are common, seeing as many of the children affected are high-risk. The problem, however, is not that all these unregistered settings are bad, it is that the system cannot reliably distinguish.
In the News
The report was covered widely in the news across platforms, including The Guardian, Inside Housing and BBC Radio 4.
Listen to our Policy and Communications Manager, Fraser Maclean, discussing the report, from 32 minutes in.
Usually, these placements are described as short-term – something for a weekend or a few weeks – but this is often not the case. On average they last around six months, with but some lasting years. Costs of £20,000 per week per child are not uncommon, and at times, this expense can be doubled.
The Government has already outlined several measures to improve regulation and commissioning children’s placements, and removing barriers to creating affordable provision. However, other measures may be misguided. For example, increasing Ofsted’s powers to find unregistered providers are well-intentioned. Treating unregistered children’s homes as a compliance issue misses the wider context: a children social care system that is stretched financially and operationally to breaking point, with the most extreme cases absorbing extraordinary sums and risk.
While writing this report, researchers detected an uneasy professional climate around the legality of these practices. This, when paired with profound systemic pressures, has created a perverse situation in which well-meaning practitioners engage in potentially harmful commissioning about which they cannot speak with frankness and transparently. Frankness and transparency are, however, the only ways to address this problem constructively.
Summary of recommendations:
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Improve national data collection on unregistered placements, using shared datasets between Ofsted and local authorities.
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Separate the registration of providers from the registration of physical locations.
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Enable Ofsted to recognise relevant CQC-registered placements to avoid duplicative regulation.
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Amend Regulation 44 processes to remove perverse incentives that discourage placements from accepting high-needs children.
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Strengthen the role of Regional Care Cooperatives in commissioning high-cost, low-frequency placements.
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Issue national guidance to local authorities encouraging them to assess the advantages and disadvantages of sequential sourcing where children have complex needs or urgent timelines.
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Explore partnerships with Housing Associations to increase safe, emergency accommodation capacity.
Summary
Hidden Children is a Commonweal-commissioned report produced by researchers at Public First, investigating the proliferation of unregistered, illegal children’s homes and the drivers for their increased use.
It reveals that illegal homes are used when a local authority has no legal options available (which can also mean no legal providers willing to take the child in) and are increasing in prevalence across the UK due to shortages of specialist placements, and the rising complexity of looked-after children's circumstances.
Published in April 2026, this report was among the first to document and analyse the still-unfolding acceleration of unregistered home use, bringing together practitioner testimony, existing datasets, and wider trends in social care. Researchers conducted interviews with frontline key workers, Directors of Children’s Services, and sector experts as part of the study.
Policy developments
In July 2026, Ofsted committed to a strategic reset, committing to (amongst some other measures) a more regionally focused registration process, with a focus on where need is. They are also ramping up enforcement (with a new unregistered social care team) and police partnerships to come down on illegal providers and councils repeatedly seen to be using them. Read the full plans outlined on the Government website here.
Whilst these measures are welcome, more must be done, especially to address the lack of the right provision in the right place. Commonweal is keen to engage with colleagues in the sector and political stakeholders on the report's recommendations.
If you would like to discuss the report or the issues surrounding unregistered children's homes, please email Fraser Maclean, Commonweal’s Policy and Communications Manager, at FraserM@commonweal.org.uk.