Children’s Social Care Placements Costing Over £10,000 a Week Rise by Over 1,000 Percent in 5 Years

Photo illustration dated January 2020 of a teenage girl showing signs of mental health issues. PA

The number of children’s social care placements costing £10,000-plus a week has risen by over 1,000 percent in five years, a survey has found.

A survey of councils released by the Local Government Association (LGA) on Nov. 29 has found that they are paying out thousands per child owing to a “significant shortfall in suitable homes” in the care system.

In October and November 2023, the LGA sent an online survey to all councils providing children’s social care in England, such as child placements, children’s homes, and foster carers.

The highest-cost placement reported was £63,000 a week. For most, the highest cost fell between £9,600 and £32,500 a week.

‘Twelvefold Increase’

Nearly every council (98 percent) said a lack of choice in placements was driving the high prices. Forty-four percent said that high-cost placements were in emergency cases.

Over 9 in 10 (93 percent) councils also highlighted children needing help with increasingly complex needs, including mental health needs or exhibiting challenging behaviours.

There were approximately 75,700 placements for children in care in 2018/19, compared to 92,800 in 2022/23.

In 2018/19, 120 of these were classified as costing £10,000 per week or more, which “was a tiny minority of the total (0.2 per cent), compared with over 1,500 in 2022/23.”

The LGA said that while this “remained a slim minority of 1.6 per cent, it represents over a twelvefold increase since 2018/19, demonstrating that these extremely high-cost placements represent a rapidly increasing issue for local authorities.”

Louise Gittins, chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said, “The astronomical costs of care placements mean there is less money available for councils to spend on earlier support for children and families.”

Figures published in November showed there were 83,840 looked-after children, or about one child in every 140, in England, the highest number on record.

However, the government said that many of the changes detailed by the LGA can be explained by the large increase in unaccompanied asylum-seeking children this year. They are “generally male, aged 16 plus years,” it said.

‘Sleepwalked’

Using Freedom of Information requests to English local authorities, Professor Andy Bilson at the University of Central Lancashire estimated in 2016 that one in every five children in England is referred to children’s services before the age of five. He said that children’s services are “under considerable pressure to investigate more mainly because of government, media and public responses to child deaths.”

Last year, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that UK has “sleepwalked” into a system in which children are failing to get suitable placements in foster care and children’s homes.

The report found there is a shortage of appropriate places in children’s homes and with foster carers. The shortage meant that “high prices are often being paid by local authorities, who are responsible for placing children in appropriate settings, with these costs picked up by taxpayers.”

The CMA’s analysis found that the “main reason for this is the fragmented system by which services are commissioned, which means that local authorities are not able to leverage their role as the purchasers of placements or to plan properly for the future.”

‘Profiteering by Some Private Providers’

Responding to LGA research on the cost of children’s social care placements John Pearce, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), said, “This report highlights several important issues that ADCS has been consistently raising with government for years.”

He said that the “unmanageable costs of children’s social care placements, and the significant shortfall in suitable homes for children in our care has led to a crisis in the sector that needs immediate national action.”

“Local authorities are the sole purchasers of placements, yet are often held to ransom by private providers due to lack of sufficiency meaning costs can be thousands of pounds a week for individual placements for children in their care.”

He said that “providers can pick and choose which referrals to accept and set the price due to overwhelming demand particularly for placements for children with the complex needs.”

He claimed that “profiteering by some private providers” takes money out of the system when it should be spent on children.

A government spokeswoman told The Epoch Times by email that its “reforms to children’s social care will focus on more early support for families, reducing the need for crisis response at a later stage, with plans backed by £200 million to test and refine our approach. ”

“We are also investing £259 million to support local authorities to create more placements for children in high-quality and safe homes,” she added.