The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is very clear.

A person aged 16 or over is presumed to have capacity in law to make their own decisions. Of course, it is the responsibility of all social workers to ensure that those aged 16 and 17 are equipped with all the information they need to make a choice and that the information should be presented in a way that is clear and plain. The default should never, however, be that those aged 16 or 17 are not competent to make a decision, no matter how complex it might be.

It should not be up to an IRO or any professional as to whether a child aged 16 or 17 should be accommodated under S20 against their will.

“It is hard to see how a child could ever make a genuinely informed decision about the difference between section 20 or section 17, with no experience of either and at a deeply stressful moment in their lives.” is a very dangerous precedent to set. Respect the views and decisions of those aged 16 and 17- as the law required you to do. This is yet another step in the “the state knows what you need better than you do” direction and we need to be really careful that we are respecting people’s rights and their choices. If there’s an issue with advocacy and accessibility of information, deal with that.

However, guidance and mandatory is one aspect the financing to follow these through is another and here the government is ace at restricting finance and in no way ever provides sufficient finance to do anything. But since 2010 Tory government have been deliberately keep LAs short of finance saying that savings should be made, while not ensuring areas of saving are there for savings to be made.

In fact, it could be said the the PPE fiasco was caused by government applying savings when there weren’t savings to be made, but a need to retain what was considered an unnecessary surplus, but as COVID shown wasn’t. hence, even more wasteful spending for PPE due to the urgency required and no real knowledge of what was required, where it was required and from whom, so many £billions of finance was wasted all in the name of making savings.

But, unfortunately that is one of many instances that has occurred over many years, even many well before 2010. Government believes or does it even believe, it is doing what is required, when in most instances it has no idea, just like ‘sticking a finger up’ to ascertain the speed of wind or its coldness. but, sticking a finger up has many other meanings and some of them may apply.
So back to homeless children, yes the guidance is there, but perhaps, in no way is the funding for to make savings, funds from some areas have to be diverted to others and when gone, maybe not possible to return, if and when needed as they have gone.

It is ‘supply and demand’ and really both should be equal, but are not, if ever, for in all instances demand will be in excess of supply, with demand being ‘need’ and supply being finance and other resources.

LAs are always in the firing line because they are the nearest authority, but in many if not all it is government who are more than likely to far away and even, if not refuse to accept responsibility and accountability as there is never any transparency, which, if there was transparency more accountability could be seen, but ignorance either accidental or deliberate is responsible. maybe more of the latter.