Source: Children’s Commissioner published on this website Wednesday 14 January 2026 by Jill Powell
- Second report into illegal children’s homes by Children’s Commissioner shows one year on, vulnerable children are still being housed in caravans, holiday camps or AirBnBs – some for as long as three years
- Number of illegal placements costing £1 million per child rises, despite these settings being unable to provide safety or care – at an estimated total cost of £353 million to the taxpayer
- Most children placed in illegal homes have mental health or additional educational needs – more than half have Education, Health and Care Plans
- “This is what failure looks like”: Children’s Commissioner calls for specialist foster care, more children’s homes and a new focus for reforming children’s social care
More than half of children housed illegally by councils have Education, Health and Care Plans, new data from the Children’s Commissioner confirms – as the number of illegal placements costing more than £1 million per child has risen since last year.
One year on from the Commissioner’s first report into local authorities’ use of illegal homes – including AirBnBs, holiday camps and caravans – to accommodate children in care, data shows very little has changed: on 1st September this year, there were 669 children living in illegal homes, down from 764 on the same day last year.
Nearly 60% of these children have complex additional needs or disabilities requiring an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), meaning they likely also receive support from other services beyond social care, while more than one third (36%) are receiving support from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
Of the 669 children placed illegally, 89 have been living in the same illegal placement for more than one year. While most are over 15, there are some children of pre-school age growing up in illegal children’s homes.
The average duration of these illegal placements is a little over six months. One child was at put in a holiday camp for nearly nine months, another was in a caravan for more than four months and a handful of children remained in an illegal home for more than three years.
The average weekly cost of a placement was more than £10,000 – the equivalent to more than half a million pounds over the course of a year. In total councils across England have spent an estimated £353 million on illegal children’s homes in 2025, of which 36 placements had already cost £1 million each by 1st September.
Today’s data underscores the crisis in children’s social care, with children – many extremely vulnerable or with complex needs – placed in poor quality placements at an exorbitant cost to taxpayers.
