Care for single child costs council £1.5m a year

A council has spent £5m more on child social care than it had budgeted, including £1.5m on accommodation for a single young person.

Wiltshire Council's cabinet member for children's services Jon Hubbard said it included a spend of £30,000 a week, a total of £1.56m a year, to place one high-risk young person in secure accommodation.

"One child can move this budget by more than a million pounds," Hubbard said.

He added the wider overspend was down to a national placement crisis and a budget that was "never set high enough to absorb it".

It comes after reports of children being housed in illegal homes including caravans, narrow boats and holiday homes across the country. An Ofsted report recently declared the cost of unregistered children's care homes a national scandal.

The bulk of the overspend in Wiltshire – £4.4m – was due to the cost of external residential care for children, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

According to the council, the average weekly price of independent fostering agency care was £192 higher than the £896 it budgeted, while the average weekly price of external residential care was £2,200 higher than the £3,800 it budgeted.

In order to combat the cost of supported accommodation, the council said it was building its own children's homes.

"Three properties are already secured, the first children have already moved in, and our investment in homes for care-experienced young people is already paying back," Hubbard said.

Hubbard also said the crisis was "not unique" to Wiltshire, adding that a nationwide "shortage of suitable homes, rising complexity of need, and a largely private provider market" had pushed prices up to levels no-one "would have predicted".

Children and Families Minister Josh MacAlister said the government was "cracking down hard" on illegal, unregistered children's homes and working closely with Ofsted and police on enforcement action.

"Ultimately we want fewer children to need places in residential care homes, which is why we are pushing to create 10,000 new foster places this parliament and investing £2.4bn in the Families First Partnership programme so children can find a place in secure and loving homes," he added.

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