Council sets up team to tackle spiralling placement costs amid £7.9m overspend

The council, which was downgraded to ‘Inadequate’ in all areas by Ofsted in October last year, said that rising numbers of looked after children had led the council to the massive overspend on its budget.

Documents, seen by Social Work Today, say the council’s financial woes have been “exacerbated” by rising costs due to a lack of local placements.

“Despite attempts to reduce the numbers of Children Looked After, the number has continued to rise. This coupled with the lack of local placements has meant that the pressure on the placement budget has continued to increase,” the document says.

The council says “further work” is underway to measure the projected costs and says that cases are being reviewed to look at where changes can be made to the packages of care. It says this will be a priority over the next month with a dedicated project team to “ensure that focus and pace” is given to look at reducing costs whilst maintaining a placement that meets the child’s needs.

The council says it has also established a team to “challenge high-cost placements” and recruit overseas social workers, which it hopes will reduce the overspend over the remainder of the financial year. The council says it has offered positions to 33 overseas social workers which it anticipates will be in its employment by October, when it will be able to release “high-cost agency staff”.

The council says several of its savings proposals have not been able to be progressed due to last year’s Ofsted inspection and the hidden harm that it is now seeing as a result of COVID-19 and children not being visible. It also confirmed that the Department for Education (DfE) will contribute approximately £400k for additional Family Support Workers and business support staff to “relieve some pressure in the system” and “allow social workers to focus more time with the families with a view to reducing the number who need social care interventions.”

A representative from the council said it could not currently comment on the predicted overspend, but Councillor Margaret Cracknell, portfolio holder for children, families and education, said that a rise in positive feedback submitted to the council’s children’s services show that families are receiving better services and support.

Making the comments at a cabinet meeting, Councillor Cracknell told Cabinet members there have been 32 compliments submitted to the service formally in 2021/22.

Cllr Cracknell said: “I’m confident that the service is improving, and this view is shared by the DfE Commissioner.

“We all make complaints and become quite vocal when a service gets things wrong, but actually a service has to be really good for people to actively submit compliments.

“This shows that we are getting things right and that as a result of that, families in our area are getting a better deal and more support.

“We know that we’re not out of the woods yet, that there is still more to be done and we are determined to continue with this work.”