Council planning to introduce hub for youngsters in care

Plans are afoot to create a hub to support young people in care in their local communities.

Perth and Kinross Council wants to create a fully-integrated service for youngsters who are regarded as being “on the edge” of care, with complex and troubled lives.

One of the local authority’s main aims is to replace traditional council-run care and reduce the use of external providers of residential care by creating a hub model of support for young people in their communities.

A report drawn up by Hazel Robertson, service manager with Perth and Kinross Council’s education and children’s services department, states, while the local authority’s in-house care unit for youngsters at Almondbank House in Perth is of “high quality,” it is no longer the most cost effective.

Figures released in her report show Perth and Kinross Council had an overspend of £851,000 in the 2016-17 financial year, which was associated with out-of-area placements for youngsters.

Ms Robertson’s report states: “The key objective for this review is to reduce reliance on external residential placements, to avoid escalating costs and to better meet increasing and changing demands.”

“The council has a positive track record in taking its corporate parenting responsibilities for looking after children and young people seriously, and performance in maintaining them in community placements is strong.

“Nevertheless, we place more children and young people in external residential placements than we can accommodate within our in-house provision.”

Ms Robertson says this has led to substantial cost pressures mainly due to the need to place increasing numbers of children in expensive external residential placements.

She claims providing care to young people who have to remain in their placement up to the age of 21 has caused additional financial pressures.

“Current projections indicate that this has the potential to incur additional annual costs of £3 million by 2020,” her report adds.