According to a report by policy analysts Public First for Commonweal Housing, the number of children being placed in emergency illegal settings has increased from 144 children in 2020 to 680 children in 2025. A report by the children's commissioner found that 669 children were in unregistered homes on 1 September 2025. Children placed in these settings are more likely to be involved with gangs, county lines, serious violence, exploitation, or have experienced severe mental health crises, according to the Public First report.
Private companies charge local governments £20,000-£40,000 a week per child for placements in unregistered settings, the Public First report found. For-profit providers operate more than 80% of child residential homes in England. According to The Guardian - World, a former social worker described that social workers are being forced to break the law by placing children in unregistered settings because they have no other choice. The Care Standards Act 2000 legally requires all children's homes to be registered with Ofsted.
You are constantly having to do the wrong thing because that is the least worst option, and that is just soul-destroying. Social workers are being forced to break the law because they have no other choice.
Tragic individual cases reveal dangerous conditions in unregistered settings. Nonita Grabovskyte, an autistic teenager with mental ill health, was placed in unregistered privately run supported accommodation before she took her own life on 28 December 2023, an inquest into her death found. The operations director of the home where she was placed had no social work qualification, no training in autism, and last attended safeguarding training in 2021 or 2022, the inquest revealed. In another case reported by LBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Alice, a 15-year-old at-risk girl, was moved 300 miles from her home to escape sexual exploitation and was plied with alcohol and sexually assaulted by two ex-soldiers paid by a private firm to care for her in an unregistered house. The youngest child placed in an unregistered setting was five years old, according to a former social worker. On one occasion, the only available accommodation for a child was a barge, the former social worker said.
A broader temporary accommodation crisis is affecting families with children across England. About 135,000 families, including just under 176,000 children, are currently living in temporary housing, the highest number on record. Some families are living in temporary accommodation that is 'unfit for human habitation', according to a cross-party Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee report. According to BBC News, Nestere Yehdego described that his family lives in a one-bedroom flat in Slough with mould and damp, causing skin problems for his baby. According to BBC News, Alicia Samuels described that her six-year-old son Aeon developed hearing problems and sleep apnoea due to mould, damp, and drafts in their one-bed flat in Tower Hamlets, which was infested with mice.
My first child can't sleep well, as the younger one normally wakes her up three or four times a night by crying or making noise. She is going to school next year and I'm worried because if she doesn't sleep enough she will be tired.
Living in temporary accommodation has contributed to the deaths of 104 children in England in the past six years, including 76 under the age of one, according to data from the National Child Mortality Database compiled by the all-party parliamentary group for households in temporary accommodation. There were 64 stillbirths and 27 neonatal deaths involving mothers living in temporary accommodation in the UK in 2024, the data shows. Out of 3,303 deaths of babies born between 1 January and 3 December 2024, at least 91 (3%) were to mothers living in temporary accommodation, according to data from the MBRRACE-UK research project.
Placements in unregistered settings often last for extended periods, with the average placement lasting six months, and one child staying in a holiday camp or activity centre for almost nine months, according to a report by the children's commissioner. Newham Council is facing an unprecedented housing crisis where demand far outweighs the number of available properties, a council spokesman said.
The younger one has some kind of allergy, a rash on her face and she scratches and scratches. When I went to the GP he asked me whether we kept any pets and when I said no, they said it [the rash] was coming from the house.
Key unknowns remain about what specific actions the government or local authorities are taking to reduce the number of children in unregistered settings and improve temporary accommodation conditions. The total financial cost to local governments from paying private companies for unregistered placements has not been disclosed, and it is unclear whether there have been any legal consequences for social workers or authorities placing children in illegal settings. The long-term health and social outcomes for children who have been placed in unregistered settings or poor temporary accommodation are also not fully understood.
He ended up temporarily deaf in one ear because of the mould and the damp and the drafts. It's affected him a lot, he's going to these hospital and doctor's appointments and a lot of it's based on our living situation. He wasn't born with these conditions.
There were mice in the kitchen where we eat and cook, and I would see them run across my kitchen counters.