Last year Wirral Council spent nearly £28m on care costs for the children it looks after with costs expected to rise further.
The £27.9m figure makes up half of the local authority’s entire budget on children and families and is one of the areas putting pressure on the council’s budget. This is an average of £38,290 per child over the course of the year.
According to a council report, increases of children in care with post-Covid demand and rising costs have put more pressure on childrens’ services.
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The report also said: “Increases in residential care and more recently independent fostering combined with the impact of the higher pay award adding further costs to the adverse position.”
The rising costs are despite a decrease in the number of children the council cares for. In March 2023, 766 children were in care, a decrease from 821 in March 2021.
Around 60 to 70 of these are children in residential homes with the largest costs coming from this group. In a childrens and education committee meeting on June 21, council officers said some placements for children cost more than £10,000 a week.
However going forward the number of children is expected to go up with the rising cost of living increasing costs further. To help make savings in this area, Wirral Council is looking to move more children into foster families in order to cut down on costs.
To also cut down on costs, Wirral Council is also in the process of buying a house to become a respite outreach unit for children with learning or mental health difficulties. This is being supported by the NHS through two grants.
Simone White, children and families director, said: “The reason this was important to us is that we have found locally and nationally a lot of children with mental health and learning difficulties end up as in-patients in hospital.
“They frequently end up in hospital for protracted (lengthy) stays and one of the reasons for that is that there aren’t suitable move-in units for them to move into.”
The council is also working in partnership with Juno CIC on what was called a “groundbreaking” trial and believed to be the first of its kind in the country. Juno is a non-profit company meaning that any extra money generated will go back into looking after children.
Four children’s homes through Juno will be set up on the Wirral this year providing accommodation for 16 children with 10 homes across the Liverpool City Region in total.
Ms White said it was a really positive model, adding: “They have attracted a wide range of really good staff who want to be out of what is out there at the moment. A lot of providers are very much in the care market for money rather than for the reasons of looking after children.”
Officers said the first home has already been set up and a second home is expected to be ready shortly with two more later in the year.
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