Profiting From Kids In Care
Reporter Simon Barnes goes undercover as a care worker to investigate the increasing privatisation of the child care system. Caring for Britain's most vulnerable children is a multi-million pound business these days, with companies making enormous profits by opening up private children's homes and thousands of care workers being recruited and vetted by job agencies.
Children's homes now cost the taxpayer £830 million pounds in England alone, around £2,500 per child per week. The majority of homes, over a thousand, are being run for profit, some charging social services £8,000 or more a week per child; yet government inspectors say "very few" childrenÕs homes meet all the basic minimum standards, and many are failing to recruit, vet, train and supervise their workers properly.
The investigation uncovers private companies hiring staff to work, often alone, with very vulnerable youngsters, with no checks on their criminal backgrounds at all; and agencies supplying workers for highly responsible jobs at children's homes with no experience or relevant training. Simon investigates the world of "leaving care", in which 16 and 17 year olds on their way out of the care system are being accommodated by private companies; and meets a private children's home owner who boasts of the huge mark-ups he charges social services.
