To ask the Minister of Health, following media reports on 29 September 2025, whether the newly-announced children's residential home on the Derry/Donegal border run by Ann's Care Group will be private for-profit.

Officials within my department have inquired with the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) regarding new registrations for Children’s Homes in the Western Trust area. At this time there have been no applications from the provider mentioned in various media outlets on 29 September 2025. My Department will continue to liaise with RQIA in relation to new applications for registration in the children’s social care sector in Northern Ireland.

While currently it is possible for a for-profit operation to register as a provider of a children’s home in Northern Ireland, only a small number have done so. At 30 June 2024, there were 55 Children’s Residential Homes in Northern Ireland, 46 homes were statutory and 9 were independent sector providers, including providers operating on a not-for-profit and for-profit basis. Statutory homes provided 268 places at an average of six places per home; independent homes provided 27 places at an average of three per home.

An Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Services in Northern Ireland was published in June 2023. That Review made a recommendation not to allow the privatisation of the care of children. In its response to the Review, the Department partially accepted that recommendation, recognising the need to keep private sector provision of children’s social care to a minimum, but also acknowledging the small number of for-profit providers currently operating here and the increasing pressure on services.

My Department has established a programme of reform which is leading on the implementation of a number of the Review’s recommendations.

As shown in the table below, the number of children in care in Northern Ireland has increased year on year. My Department will continue to strive to ensure that children in care receive the best package of care available to them.

My Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of children in care in the annual report ‘Children’s Social Care Statistics for Northern Ireland’ (Children’s social care statistics for Northern Ireland 2023/24 | Department of Health (health-ni.gov.uk). The next release of these Official Statistics for year ending 31 March 2025 is due later this month.