By Keith Cooper

Further evidence of the awful impact of temporary accommodation on children and their families has just been released and will make for very uncomfortable reading for all involved. A shocking but unsurprising study has found that even more children have died while in temporary accommodation than previously known about.

The National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) has linked 55 child deaths with this stop-gap housing in the period between April 2019 and March 2023. Its previous study, which covered the shorter time span of 2019 to 2022, had linked 34 child deaths with homelessness. Most of the children in both studies were under the age of one at the time of their death.

Much of this increase relates to the way child deaths are reported. Until very recently, information about their housing situation was only added ad hoc to their statutory reporting forms. This made it impossible to identify the true scale of this tragedy. Questions about housing status have now been added to the database’s forms.

The government’s response to these findings includes the expected political rhetoric about ‘heart-breaking’ child deaths but is woefully inadequate in practice. It has simply passed the buck to local authorities with a half-hearted update to homelessness guidance without offering any direct assistance, financial or otherwise.

Since February, this guidance now states the bleeding obvious: that temporary accommodation “will not be suitable” without adequate space for cots for all children under two. It then offers this weak exhortation: “Housing authorities should consider what support is available for the provision of a cot.” Such support “may involve housing authorities assisting the household to access a cot”.

There are far too many mays, shoulds and considers in that clause for it to have any significant impact. This government intervention, in the face of increasing evidence of child deaths in temporary accommodation, amounts to a wink, and a nudge, and a whisper over its shoulder to local authorities that ‘you should really try harder’.

That may sound unfair and ministers and officials at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities do deserve maybe a smidgen of credit for taking this extremely small step, and it has been duly welcomed by the campaigners who pushed for it.

But is this really a proportionate response to a cluster of child deaths on your watch?

No, of course it’s not. It just gives us a rather morbid measure of the value that the government places on the safety of children in temporary accommodation. Perhaps 55 child deaths only warrant an update to official guidance in its eyes? To be charitable, let’s consider what effect that might have.

Will this update mobilise a massive movement in local authorities to seek out and find much larger accommodation for families with children under two? Is there any such accommodation available? Let’s hazard a ‘no’ on both counts, unless, of course, these homes are far away from their social networks, creating another risk to their safety.

Will this augmented guidance empower newly homeless parents to stand their ground when offered a wholly unsuitable room? No, again. Families lucky enough to have access to advice are usually told to accept any accommodation on offer before challenging its suitability. Standing your ground from the outset risks losing your right to any accommodation at all, according to our cruel housing laws.

So, what would be the proportionate response to child deaths in temporary accommodation? And just what would it take to go further than guidelines?

The obvious solution is, of course, a legally-binding requirement on local authorities to provide families with suitably safe accommodation, cots for their babies and funding to do it. As for what it takes: that’s anyone’s guess.

55 child deaths don’t appear to warrant any serious action. Just how many more will it take?