Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Care Standards Act 2000, what the annual spend on children's homes was in each of the last 20 years.

Spend on children’s homes takes place at a Local Authority (LA) level. Annual LA expenditure statistics based on Section 251 (Outturn) returns are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/la-and-school-expenditure.

Within this release, expenditure on children looked after in residential care shows the spend on children’s homes. Residential care expenditure includes expenditure on residential care in voluntary children’s and registered children’s homes as defined in the Children Act 1989, which can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/contents.

The latest publication on 25 January 2024 providers cumulative expenditure data for LAs in England from the 2015/16 to 2022/23 financial years.