The number of children in Gateshead requiring social care and intervention continues to increase.
The number of looked-after children in Gateshead has seen a year-on-year rise from April 2018 at 298 to 518 as of June this year. Council documents declared this rise "the highest level of looked after children recorded."
The number of children classified as "in need" has also increased from 886 in April 2018 to 1,235 in June. A council report on the issue stated: "This increase signifies additional pressure on the social care work force, resulting in increased caseloads per social worker."
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Gateshead councillors quizzed authority staff about what is being done to support child service workers. Councillor Dott Burnett said: "Some of those figures are quite a hike and that's not going to stop with the situation we are in. What is being done about that?
"Are we recruiting new staff? Have we got people lined up? Because that is quite worrying."
Council officers told the committee they had record levels of social workers within the authority and emotional wellbeing programmes were monitoring how staff were coping with their workloads. However, committee members were told the complexity of some children's needs could not be fixed solely with more social workers.
The increase in the number of children requiring social services comes at a steep cost for the local authority.
Looked-after children cost the council approximately £40,000 a year per child. However, some services have to be outsourced owing to the complexity of a child's requirement and these services can cost as much as £30,000 a week.
Councillors were informed there are several compounding factors to the increase in social care referrals and workload. Around 16% of Gateshead residents live within the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods in England and many of the families in receipt of help live in the most deprived areas of the region.
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