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Coastal Towns

I certainly hope that the Government now have a greater understanding, but it is up to individual councils to make the arguments for their particular area very strongly, both directly and through the Local Government Association. The Government need hard evidence on such matters, especially because the more money that is given to one authority, the less is given to others. Additional More funding has to be justified to the residents not only of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but to those of all Members, because if one constituency gains more funding, others are the losers. I want to draw attention to one final aspect of our inquiry, which shocked those Committee members who took part in the Committee’s visit to the Kent coastal towns, particularly Margate. It is the problem of using former guest houses as care homes for vulnerable children—a problem that is most marked in those coastal towns that are relatively close to London, although I suspect that it occurs also in other coastal towns near large urban conurbations. The problem is one of boroughs—in Margate’s case, London boroughs—placing vulnerable children in care homes in a coastal town, rather than in facilities in their home borough. The Committee understands that there are circumstances in which the required facilities are so specialist that an individual borough does not have them within its boundaries. However, we are concerned by the apparent practice of placing children outside a borough—in particular in towns such as Margate—because it is the cheaper option. We made it clear that children should never be placed outside their home authority simply on the ground of cost. The effect on such children and, indeed, on the authority in the area where they are placed was graphically described to us by representatives of Thanet district council. The council cited individual cases in which vulnerable children, although adequately supported financially, were not given the necessary additional support and care by the home social services authority. The social services in the town where they had been placed were completely unaware of their existence until the point of crisis. In one case, a teenage girl came to the notice of the Margate authorities only when she waded into the sea to try to commit suicide—thankfully unsuccessfully. So I am pleased that the Government have accepted the principle of the Committee’s recommendation in this area, and are considering how to take matters forward in their Green Paper, ““Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care””.