Paedophiles Helped By 'Absurd' Rules, Gove Says A lack of transparency in children's homes has left the vulnerable at risk of "sexual exploitation", the Education Secretary says.Some of Britain's most vulnerable young people have been effectively left at the mercy of paedophile gangs because of "absurd" secrecy rules, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said. The Cabinet minister said red tape surrounding children's homes prevented police being given basic information about where youngsters lived and who was responsible for their care, leaving them at risk of "gangs intent on exploiting these vulnerable children". His comments came as an in-depth report by the Department for Education into children's homes in England revealed councils were spending more than £200,000 per child each year - £4,135 a week - to place a child in accommodation. It was compiled in the wake of the Rochdale sex abuse scandal of May 2012, which led to the conviction of nine men for offences relating to so-called localised grooming. The report, which revealed for the first time the location of all children's homes in the UK, found that almost a third of homes fell below the Government's preferred minimum standard. Mr Gove said almost half of children were placed in homes outside their local authority areas, and over a third sent more than 20 miles away, a practice he described as "indefensible". The Daily Telegraph reported that councils spent more than £1bn a year to care for fewer than 4,900 children, with Bexley Council spending more than £3m a child on specialist privately-run homes last year. Writing in the newspaper, Mr Gove said he had been met with a "wall of silence" when he tried to find out information about children's homes, with his department lacking basic information about their locations and who was responsible for them. The regulator Ofsted was barred from giving information to the police by data protection rules and other "bewildering regulations", he said, pledging to end the bureaucracy. But he added: "There was one group of people, however, who did seem to possess all the information: the gangs intent on exploiting these vulnerable children. "They knew where the homes were; they knew how to contact the children: at the fish and chip shop, the amusement arcade, in the local park, or just by hanging around outside the houses. "In the name of 'protecting children' by officially 'protecting' their information we had ended up helping the very people we were supposed to be protecting them from. "We shielded the children from the authorities who needed to be looking out for them. "An 'out of sight, out of mind' culture developed." Information Commissioner Christopher Graham is writing to Mr Gove and Ofsted to "set straight any misunderstandings" about data protection law, which contains nothing that would prevent the protection of vulnerable children, his office said. Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, hailed the publication of data, adding: "Recent shocking cases of sexual exploitation - Oxford, Derby, Rochdale - demonstrate the horrific abuse experienced by some children and young people. This transparency may help to highlight where risk lies and make people take action."

• published: 13 Sep 2013
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