Big reduction in number of children living in council care

Last year the department overspent by £5m.

But progress has been made in reducing the number of children living in care, which is one of the main drivers of high costs, with numbers down to 540 from 651 in July last year.

The council has also received a grant of £764,000 from the Department for Education which will be used to set up new teams of social workers to support families as a whole.

It is hoped giving more support to parents will reduce the risk to children, enabling them to continue living at home safely with their families.

A meeting of the council’s Audit Committee also heard a new financial system had been introduced to monitor spending on each child. This will be used to analyse how resources can be maximised.

Victoria Gent, director of Children’s Services, told the meeting while the current forecast overspend remained a major concern, improvements to the service were expected to bring costs down.

It is hoped to reach a target of 500 children living in care, which would bring Blackpool in line with towns such as Middlesbrough, Stoke, Hull and Torbay which have similar levels of deprivation.

Ms Gent said: “We are very clear that the numbers have needed to reduce safely.

“There will always be a proportion of children who will have to come into our care system but we know we have been out of kilter for many years.

“We are safely and proportionately reducing the number of children in care. We are making really good progress and that tells us all the important work we are doing is taking us in the right direction.”

Work to take children safely out of care includes considering options for supported living, and reassessing parental support while better intervention has led to 30 per cent fewer children needing to go into care.

It is hoped setting up whole family teams will also reduce the risk to children, using a model which has already been successful in other parts of the country.