£6m overspend on child services
SALFORD council overspent by almost £6m on children’s services during the last financial year.
The department had a budget worth £107m but ended up spending £5.9m more, although the council was able to make up for it in other areas.
Coun Bill Hinds told a scrutiny meeting at town hall: “Many of the problems in children’s services are demand led – you can’t turn away kids going into care.”
But he said that the council is monitoring the service ‘very closely.’
A recent council report said that the overspend was ‘due to increasing demand for needs led services.’
“In order to address this budget pressure on a longer term basis, the core Children’s Services budget has been increased by £4.5m in 2018/19 with remedial plans in place to address the remaining pressure,” it added.
A council officer at the scrutiny meeting on Wednesday said that other services had ‘achieved an underspend’ which helped to offset the overspend in children’s services.
This includes an underspend of more than half a million pounds in public health, while the receipt of the Manchester Airport Group dividend was also higher than expected, according to the report.
The officer said that ‘quite a lot of authorities’ around the country are ‘experiencing significant pressures in areas like lookedafter children.’
“We will be doing everything we can to manage these pressures but think we have to acknowledge that there’s a general problem here across the country,” she added.
One of the drivers of the overspend is ‘outside placements,’ she said, where children are placed outside of the city.
A programme was launched to bring children back into Salford which she said did have an impact, although that number has begun to increase.
“That work did bear fruit and reduced cost, but demand is increasing again,” she added.
Salford council also recently launched a drive to get more foster carers on its books, rather than relying on more expensive agency staff.
Coun Lisa Stone, lead member for children’s and young people’s services, said: “Much of the support we provide is driven by the needs of children and young people.
“Salford has a growing young population and as a result the demand for support for children, families, children in our care and those with special educational needs and disabilities has increased.
“At the same time the government continue to cut our core funding (with cuts of £198m since 2010) and residents are struggling with the impact of austerity and welfare reforms driving families into poverty.
“Despite government cuts to our budgets, we have invested an extra £4.5m in children’s services this year to meet demand and are working hard to deliver the best services possible within our resources, working closely with a range of partner organisations to do this.”