By Keith Cooper

Whose job is it to keep people safe in housing?

The answer seems obvious now for fire, damp, and mould since the Grenfell Tower Fire, the death of Awaab Ishak, and the rhetoric, laws and regulations which followed.

Yet this question remains stubbornly ajar in relation to temporary accommodation and the thousands of babies and young children in homeless families who live in it.

Despite government guidance urging councils in 2024 to provide cots, room to put them, and advice on safe sleep to parents in newly homeless families, councils continue to play bureaucratic games with this screamingly obvious advice.

Reports of children dying in temporary accommodation have risen for the third year in a row, according to the latest release from the NCMD (National Child Mortality Database).

The NCMD, which examines every child death in England, found that 140 children died while in temporary accommodation in the two years between October 2023 and September 2025.

The previous year it was 80 child deaths in a 12-month period over 2023 and 2024. This was in turn more than double the 34 deaths it found in the three years beforehand.

Among all the child deaths in these three reports, 104 have temporary accommodation now listed as “a contributory factor to their vulnerability, ill-health, or death”, according to NCMD analysts. Most of these deaths were of babies.

One hundred and four deaths: that’s surely enough to apply the above question to temporary accommodation – whose job it is to keep the children placed in it safe?

But unlike fire, damp, and mould, councils’ approach to child safety in temporary accommodation varies widely; they are not kept in check by laws or government regulators as with other safety concerns.

More than 4,100 babies (aged under one) and 2,300 pregnant women were placed in temporary accommodation by councils that did not give safe sleep advice before the government guidance was issued. More than 900 babies were placed in temporary accommodation by councils that did not provide cots, according to recent analysis.

“As a landlord, it would not be appropriate to advise a tenant on how to furnish the space they are placed in or give parenting advice,” said Watford Council in its response. “No cots provided… we do not pay for any in B&B,” said Enfield Council.

A spot check on these two and other authorities in January 2026 uncovered a split: some had adopted the guidance as others stuck to their moral low ground.

The government’s guidance gave Tameside, Greater Manchester “an opportunity to review” its approach, it said. Its refusal in 2024 to offer even safe sleeping advice became a commitment in 2026 to offer it and provide cots “at no cost” to families.

Nottingham began offering families cots in January 2025 and has supplied 40 since then at a cost of £199. To be clear, that’s 40 families whose babies might have otherwise been at risk for want of a safe place to sleep.

Enfield has, however, stuck to its increasingly dubious position and has “not changed its approach” to the provision of cots, it said.

However, questionable Enfield’s approach, it is at least upfront and clear.

The spot checks found another cohort of councils whose policy is to offer cots “on request”. And this is where the bureaucratic games with babies’ lives begin.

Ask yourself: what is the point of this basic medical advice and government guidance to provide cots and safe sleeping advice to families who have just lost their homes?

Could it be to check whether they’re on the ball enough to ask for one in the midst of their personal chaos?

Or is it to ensure the babies you house have a safe place to sleep?

You choose.