Please can you confirm if Devon’s Children’s Social Care would consider housing conditions as part of any assessment or plan for any child and family?
Devon County Council Children’s Social Care would consider housing conditions as part of the plan for any child.
Devon County Council Children’s Social Care work in partnership with Housing providers and will raise concerns where appropriate.
Statutory overcrowding is a legal term that refers to room and space standards and is a criminal offence for the occupier or the landlord unless an exception applies.
Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985 applies. Children under the age of 10 shall be left out of the requirement for two persons of the opposite sex not being forced to sleep in the same room.
Living rooms can be regarded as an extra bedroom.
Space Standard – the permitted number of persons per room is the smaller of the number of persons obtained from the following two calculation methods.
Where a house consists of:
- 1 room – 2 persons
- 2 rooms – 3 persons
- 3 rooms – 5 persons
- 4 rooms – 7 ½ persons
- 5 rooms or more –2 for each room
- Or Floor area of room and Number of persons:
- 4.65m2 – nil
- 4.64m2 – 6.5m2 – 1/2 person (child under 10 years)
- 6.5m2 – 8.37m2 – 1 ½ persons
- 8.37m2 – 10.22 m2 – 1 person
- 10.22m2 or greater – 2 persons.
NB No account shall be taken of a child under the age of one and a child of one to ten counts as a ½ unit.
The above are the standards which would be used by the Local Authority where concerns are identified.
Please can you confirm if a concern was brought to the social worker’s attention that one of their allocated children had a bedroom potentially measuring less than 70 sq.ft and were aged over 10, a referral would be made for a HHSRS (Housing Health and Safety Rating System) to be undertaken. This would determine whether any health hazards are present.
Provided the social worker was aware of the relevant legislation yes a referral would be made
Please can you confirm in cases where a referral is made by a child’s social worker to Housing, you would expect the parent to act in the child’s best interests by engaging with the process. Social workers are given appropriate training and supported to challenge any adult entrusted with caring for a child who chooses not to follow professional advice and there are clear procedures for escalation.
Yes we would expect a parent to follow up on any referral, sometimes on their own and sometimes with support. The social worker would only look to escalate matters of concern if the parent was genuinely acting in a way that placed a child at risk of harm.
Please can you confirm; unless it was unsafe to do so, you would share information of any non-compliance by the resident parent with all those holding parental responsibility for the child and it would also be communicated within planning documents and within review meetings, to which other persons with Parental Responsibility are involved and have access to. This would include the key information from a HHSRS assessment.
Provided it did not place a child or an adult of risk of harm by doing so then yes we would share relevant information with an absent parent / someone who holds PR. The purpose would be that the other person with PR could seek to make safe arrangements for a child if the main carer was failing to do so. They will some specific circumstances where information would not be shared regardless of holding PR, but in the main we would share relevant information.