‘Hospital admissions’ of children in care are among serious concerns over the management of a home which was only registered in March.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Croydon Council has served notice on a contract for managing a children’s home in Sanderstead less than six months after it was opened, citing “concerns”, with children put “into situations that subsequently resulted in placement breakdowns and/or hospital admissions”.
Precious House is a council-owned property that was previously known as Angel Lodge.
In 2025, as part of Mayor Jason Perry’s “Stabilisation Plan” to cut costs, Croydon sought to provide a home for children in its care while avoiding the high charges made by private providers.
The procurement contract to manage the home was for a duration of seven years at a total cost of £8.57million – or £1.2million per year. The St Christopher’s Fellowship charity won the tender process.
The home was supposed to provide short- to medium-term residential support for vulnerable children and young people in care, to enable them eventually to return to their families or secure long-term arrangements.
“We are working to become a more cost-effective and efficient council,” Perry said in March this year, after the home had been registered with Ofsted and ready to open its doors. “This new children’s home… will give our young people the best possible chances to thrive.”
Yet in a Town Hall report which was slipped out quietly yesterday, council bosses say that Precious House “has not had a permanent registered manager since registration and service commencement”.
Happy families: Mayor Perry was keen to take credit when the children’s home was opened. He’s been silent over the abrupt collapse of the contract
The council report recommending immediate cancellation of the contract with St Christopher’s says, “Recruitment and retention of staff have been of significant concern contributing both to delays in service delivery and to the deterioration of the emergency accommodation provision.”
Much of the detail of the council’s concerns has been kept secret, in “Part B” papers which are withheld from the public. The matter has not been discussed at any public council meeting and opposition councillors have yet to receive any official briefing on how bad the situation, and the “hospital admissions”, might be.
“Even by Croydon’s standard of massive clusterfucks, this is an immense fuck up,” was the view of one Katharine Street source.
Precious House is supposed to provide beds for four Croydon children in care. According to the council report dated August 7, but only released yesterday, there are two children in accommodation at Precious House at this time.
The seven-year contract to manage the home with St Christopher’s Fellowship was signed in July 2025. It has a three-month notice period. “Full due diligence was undertaken as part of the process,” the council report claims.
The property was brought up to required safety standards with a capital grant from the Department for Education.
In the council report from last year when establishing the home, they said: “The development of Precious House as an in-house residential children’s home provision meets the objectives of the Stabilisation Plan in that it will reduce cost and manage demand into the external residential provision estate.”
Blueprint: Debbie Jones was Croydon’s director of children’s services
The scheme had been the idea of the council’s previous director of children’s services, Debbie Jones. The home would “reduce the financial burden of using external residential placements” and it was supposed to “give the council a blueprint for future initiatives to enable the council to continuously improve the development of future provision”.
Only later in the report was any mention made of improving outcomes for children in care.
The latest report – “Contract Termination for the Provision of a Children’s Home” – was written by Jones’s successor, Stuart Collins. The cabinet member responsible is given as Councillor Andy Stranack.
In true Mayor Perry style, of never taking responsibility for anything, his name does not appear on the report.
“This report seeks approval to terminate the contract for the operation of Precious House children’s home. The recommendation is driven by concerns regarding the outcomes experienced by children placed at the home and the provider’s inability to consistently demonstrate the capability required to deliver the high standard of care expected by the council as Corporate Parent.”
And the report states: “Concerns about the delivery of Precious House were identified soon after commencement of the service. Despite efforts to work with the provider to improve practice, the situation has deteriorated to the extent that reasonable steps to address the concerns are no longer considered viable or effective and confidence in the ability of the provider to deliver the service is lost.
Shocking reading: the ‘confidential’ council report on Precious House (which has been placed on the council website), which keeps much detail secret
“A key factor resulting in these recommendations has been the outcomes experienced by children placed at Precious House. All children had moved from stable arrangements, where they had remained for several months, into situations that subsequently resulted in placement breakdowns and/or hospital admissions.
“Recruitment and retention of staff have been of significant concern contributing both to delays in service delivery and to the deterioration of the emergency accommodation provision. The home has not had a permanent registered manager since registration and service commencement.”
Later in the report it states that “concerns have been raised with the provider at the highest level… Managers were unwilling to reverse decisions and work in partnership to find solutions…
“They were initially reluctant to acknowledge the inexperience and development needs of both staff and managers but eventually presented an improvement plan which confirmed the existence of these issues.
“The plan was devised in isolation and would not have resulted in an improved service at
pace.” At which point, Collins decided to pull the plug.
St Christopher’s Fellowship has been approached for comment.
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What an absolute mess. It’s the children who are suffering here, exactly what Perry apparently wanted to avoid…. “They were in a stable setting for children before entering Precious House” (what a peculiar name) followed by the same children (2 not 4) having an unstable setting after staying there. Mayor Perry, how would you feel if you were one of the children?
At the end of the day what is it all about? “Efficiency”! Saving money. Whilst spending it in obscene amounts on overpaid and under-delivering consultants.
There’s a phrase for saving money in this way: If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
This administration needs to grow some balls and decide to do things properly. Croydon deserves better.
The St Christophers Fellowship is a long standing charity in providing care to Children with a huge number of contracts with the State. On paper this seemed like a good innovation by the Council with a service that is desperately needed. For it to collapse so rapidly really does require more explanation by the Council and it’s Mayor than slipping out a report late in the day to attempt to be unnoticed and keeping the reasons for the failure secret. Appears to be that a serious failure of safeguarding has occurred and it cannot be assumed to have been a Council failure if this service had been contracted out to an external organisation. Such failure is why Councils started to provide such services in the first place. As usual with Perry it seems the external organisations interests are of more importance to him rather than the Council suffering yet more damage to it’s reputation. If that was possible.