Disabled children 3 times more likely to be the subject of safeguarding
A report based on major research by Professor Andy Bilson finds (among much else) that children with a disability or mental health concern are more than three times as likely as those without these factors to be investigated by child protection services. The research also reveals that:
- regional disparities indicate that responses are shaped more by resource constraints and local thresholds than the needs of children; and that
- between 2015 and 2023, section 47 child protection investigations involving disabled children increased by 145%.
These findings echo recent research by the Family Rights Group that ‘many families were being dragged unnecessarily into an intrusive system”, to be blamed rather than supported’. A Community Care article referring to the FRG research noted that although child protection enquiry numbers hit a record high in 2025, significant harm was only found in less than third of cases. It also cited the comment by FRG chief executive Cathy Ashley that all too often Children’s Services viewed the challenges families were facing ‘through the lens of risk and blame, when what they often [required was] effective, non-judgmental support and help’ and that ‘too much time and resource [is] wasted on unnecessary and expensive investigation when it could be spent on earlier support which keeps families safely together.’
In response to the FRG research, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and the Local Government Association referred to the increasing demand and the cost pressures local authorities were facing. This is of course true, but all too often the problem is not ‘cost’ but ‘budgets’. A graphic example of this is illustrated by the case of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council v Mother & Ors [2025] EWFC 78 (B).
The case deserves reading in full, but in simple terms it involved care proceedings concerning a family of six children – where the judge had to decide whether the children should remain at home with their parents or be removed and placed in the care of the local authority. The authority accepted that if it succeeded in its application, and the children came into care, some of them would have to live separately and that the fostering costs for each child would be in the region of about £1,000 per week (ie over £300,000 pa for them all).
In response to the question ‘what support is offered if the children stay at home?’ the position was (as described by the judge at para 70):
In my judgment, very little. The supervision support plan provides; a review meeting every four weeks, social work visit every four weeks, a family support worker attending weekly, a referral to specialist parenting courses, and then everything else falling to the parents. The social worker was candid in evidence. He told me that Local Authority resources are limited and it is not possible to provide an assurance of high levels of support. It is not the role of the Local Authority to provide substituted parenting. When asked what was needed, he thought somebody in the morning and at night. I am told the cost of an independent social worker to provide that, locally, is about £60 an hour.
The judge concluded that the children remaining in their home was the ‘least worst option for them’. He accepted that there were significant risks either way – but noted (para 79) that if taken into care a disadvantage would be that the placements would not be long-term – that:
At best, some if not all will come to an end within 12 months. They are out of county and a distance away. As a sibling group they will be separated, and, for the foreseeable future, they will never be together as a sibling group. In my judgment, there is a real risk, that cannot be ignored, that each of these children would experience multiple placements. In my judgment, that will have an enormous impact on them. They will lose the support of their schools and the professional network that is working well. Both the independent social worker, the social worker and the guardian accepted that. The independent social worker suggested that a child’s care experience on average, sees five placement moves. …
It is difficult to see how the local authority could argue that its difficulties in this case arose from scarce resources (the ‘support at home’ option being roughly £250,000 less costly pa). The problem was, as is so often is the case, that the ‘children in need budget’ was too small/too inaccessible to practitioners, and the ‘looked after budget’/legal budget was – in effect – deemed to be inexhaustible.
Posted 2nd December 2025