Rise of children in care leads to £2.4m overspend

A rise in the number of children in care has led to a £2.4 million overspend in the social care budget by Leicestershire County Council.

Over the past five years the number of looked after children the authority is responsible for has risen by 47 per cent. In March 2012 there were 375 children in care, in March 2018 there were 553.

A report which will appear before cabinet today, says the rise is down to an increased number of children coming into the system needing residential support.

It goes on to talk about the national picture and says: “Other authorities are experiencing similar pressures with the Local Government Association reporting 75 per cent of councils overspending and a cumulative pressure of £600 million.”

Social care staffing budgets also overspent by £1.7 million and £300,000 more than planned was spent on placements for pupils with special educational needs.

Councillor Byron Rhodes, deputy leader and finance spokesman for the council, said the number of children coming into care was rising, not just here but everywhere.

“We’re expecting the figure to rise still for the coming year and we’ve made provision for that going forward.

“It’s not a number we can control, these children come to us.

“There was an underspend in adult social care which has helped to balance the books somewhat.”

Other departments also underspent with some of the cash being carried forward for 2018/19.

Adults and communities made savings of £5.4 million with the biggest underspend of £5 million being delivered by residential and nursing care.

The public health department achieved an underspend of £0.9 million thanks to changes in service delivery.

Savings were also made on landfill, transport and highways.

From 2018/19 to 2021/22 the council needs to make cuts of £50m.

Coun Rhodes said: “Hopefully we’ve planned well for the coming year.

“The difficulty we’ve got now is that we’ve made enormous savings over the last few years but we’ve got another £50 million to go.

“We know where £37 million of that will come from, £13 million we’re still working to identify where those savings will come from.

“It’s a case of pruning the cost but keeping service levels up.

“There isn’t much left that we can take out, it’s proving quite difficult to achieve it but that’s what we have to do.”