All children will be removed from a privately run youth jail because of serious ongoing safety concerns, the government has announced. Work is under way to find alternative accommodation for 33 children at Rainsbrook secure training centre, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said, after calls for urgent action to address problems at the unit. The government was urged to step in after it emerged children were being locked up for more than 23 hours a day at the site near Rugby in Warwickshire during the coronavirus pandemic. The justice secretary, Robert Buckland, previously described the situation as an “unacceptable failure” and MPs increased pressure for the site to be taken back under public control from the US-based contractor MTC. Such a move is under consideration, the MoJ said on Wednesday. Another possibility would be to shut the centre and find another use for it. Buckland said: “Six months ago, I demanded that MTC take immediate action to fix the very serious failings at Rainsbrook. They have failed to deliver and I have been left with no choice but to ask that all children are moved elsewhere as soon as possible. “This move will help protect the public by ensuring often vulnerable children get the support they need to turn their lives around, ultimately resulting in fewer victims and safer streets.” Negotiations about the future of the contract with MTC are ongoing. Rainsbrook can hold up to 87 children aged between 12 and 17, whether serving a custodial sentence or on remand from the courts. The schools watchdog, Ofsted, the Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) issued a rare urgent notification to Buckland in December over “continued poor care and leadership” at the site and concerns that vulnerable children were being subjected to a “bleak regime”. The inspectors issued the notification after finding that little progress had been made, despite assurances two months earlier that immediate action would be taken, and over concerns that newly admitted children, some as young as 15, were being locked in their bedrooms for 14 days and only allowed out for 30 minutes. MTC’s managing director, Ian Mulholland, who took over the role in January and was not in charge at the time of the inspections, has previously apologised “unreservedly” for the “very obvious failings” but said efforts were being made to rectify the situation. The Commons justice committee described MTC’s promises of improvement as “worth less than the paper they are written on”.