Care costs are killing us, council warns

More than 350 children were in the care of Hartlepool Borough Council at the end of September

A council has warned it faces going more than £5.5m over budget in its children's services department as a result of "unprecedented" pressures.

Hartlepool Borough Council said the main reasons for the projected overspend this financial year "continue to be the increase in the numbers and costs of children requiring external residential placements".

A total of 352 youngsters were in its care at the end of September, up from 345 in June.

Leader of the Labour-led authority Councillor Pamela Hargreaves told a committee meeting: "Social care costs are killing us, [and] not just us, just about every local authority in the country is suffering from the cost of social care."

Finance chiefs said the children's department overspend was now £1m higher than had been forecast in June with "further potential deterioration" possible.

A report to the latest meeting of the council's finance and corporate affairs committee noted the rise in the number of youngsters needing care has "associated impacts on social work staffing workloads and budgets".

It also said it reflected the "increasing complexity of children's needs and the significant fees being charged by the external care market".

Reports noted the current top 25 highest-cost external placements are costing in the region of £230,000 per week, equating to about £12m per year.

They added the average cost of the current 49 external placements is £7,010 per week, with a range from £3,900 to £23,290 per week, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Melanie Morley, chair of the children's services committee, told colleagues steps had been taken in recent months to help address the overspend as the authority took on its legal and moral "duty" to provide care for youngsters in need.

Hargreaves added: "We are overspending at the moment and I know that every department and every section of every department is doing what they can to try and contribute to bringing that spend down."