A Cabinet report at Harrow Council has raised serious safeguarding and governance questions after acknowledging that financial incentives in the residential care market may encourage providers to keep disabled children in highly restrictive placements longer than necessary.
The report, “In-House Residential Provision for Children with Disabilities,” considered by Cabinet on 18 December 2025, was authored by Liz Barter, Assistant Director for Children and Young People with Disabilities (CYAD), the officer responsible for overseeing specialist disability services and residential placements involving children with complex needs, including those subject to deprivation of liberty arrangements.
In a notable passage, the report states that private providers may have “a perverse incentive… to avoid supporting the progression of residents and maintaining higher staffing numbers for financial reasons.” In effect, the council acknowledges that financial pressures within the residential care market may encourage providers to maintain highly staffed placements and delay children moving to less restrictive settings.
Despite that admission, the report frames the issue primarily as a commissioning and cost-control problem. Rather than proposing a safeguarding review of existing placements or reassessing whether restrictive arrangements remain necessary, it discusses negotiating reductions in staffing levels with providers and developing in-house residential provision to regain control over care packages and placement costs.
The proposal asks Cabinet to delegate wide authority to officers to progress the project, including identifying and acquiring property, approving capital and revenue budgets, refurbishing premises, securing registration from Ofsted, and opening the home.
The governance context adds to the sensitivity. Harrow Council Children’s Services is currently operating under an improvement notice from the Department for Education following an inadequate judgement by Ofsted, and the authority’s Director of Children’s Services left the role in November 2025, with the statutory position now being covered on an interim basis.
The report itself identifies no safeguarding review of current placements, no project risk register, and no Equality Impact Assessment, stating that moving to in-house provision would not change the equality impact.
The concerns are not being raised externally: they appear in the council’s own Cabinet paper authored by the senior officer responsible for the service. That raises a central question about where corporate parenting scrutiny is operating in practice when the welfare of some of the borough’s most vulnerable disabled children is involved — particularly in a local authority already criticised for systemic weaknesses in its children’s services.
Against that background, critics say the episode reinforces a wider concern: that Harrow Council is “coasting while core services fail those who rely on them most.”
The report, “In-House Residential Provision for Children with Disabilities,” considered by Cabinet on 18 December 2025, was authored by Liz Barter, Assistant Director for Children and Young People with Disabilities (CYAD), the officer responsible for overseeing specialist disability services and residential placements involving children with complex needs, including those subject to deprivation of liberty arrangements.
In a notable passage, the report states that private providers may have “a perverse incentive… to avoid supporting the progression of residents and maintaining higher staffing numbers for financial reasons.” In effect, the council acknowledges that financial pressures within the residential care market may encourage providers to maintain highly staffed placements and delay children moving to less restrictive settings.
Despite that admission, the report frames the issue primarily as a commissioning and cost-control problem. Rather than proposing a safeguarding review of existing placements or reassessing whether restrictive arrangements remain necessary, it discusses negotiating reductions in staffing levels with providers and developing in-house residential provision to regain control over care packages and placement costs.
The proposal asks Cabinet to delegate wide authority to officers to progress the project, including identifying and acquiring property, approving capital and revenue budgets, refurbishing premises, securing registration from Ofsted, and opening the home.
The governance context adds to the sensitivity. Harrow Council Children’s Services is currently operating under an improvement notice from the Department for Education following an inadequate judgement by Ofsted, and the authority’s Director of Children’s Services left the role in November 2025, with the statutory position now being covered on an interim basis.
The report itself identifies no safeguarding review of current placements, no project risk register, and no Equality Impact Assessment, stating that moving to in-house provision would not change the equality impact.
The concerns are not being raised externally: they appear in the council’s own Cabinet paper authored by the senior officer responsible for the service. That raises a central question about where corporate parenting scrutiny is operating in practice when the welfare of some of the borough’s most vulnerable disabled children is involved — particularly in a local authority already criticised for systemic weaknesses in its children’s services.
Against that background, critics say the episode reinforces a wider concern: that Harrow Council is “coasting while core services fail those who rely on them most.”
Harrow Monitoring Group 