Cost of children in care puts £4m strain on Blackpool Council budget

This is despite more than £8m of extra funding being ploughed into the department to bolster resources.

But a failure to reduce the number of children in care and a 25 per cent increase in the cost of some residential care has led to the overspend.

A report to a meeting of the council's executive says investment of almost £8.2m in August 2020, the adoption of a new financial strategy and other service improvements were designed "to reduce placement spend by a third."

But it adds: "However, Looked After Children numbers have not reduced in line with the plan and placement unit costs have continued to increase resulting in an overspend within the children’s social care of £4,260k.

"The Children’s Social Care Medium Term Financial Strategy is being refreshed in summer 2022 in advance of the 2023/24 budget."

In February 2021 the council unveiled a five year strategy to transform children’s social care and take control of its spiralling cost, with nearly 600 children in care.

Among the aims was to reduce the annual cost of the service from £48m to £33m, and bring the number of children in care down to around 400.

Around 80 per cent of the children’s services budget is spent on children in care. Around 55 per cent of the budget goes on residential placement costs which can be up to £7,000 per week.

Last year the council's director of resources Steve Thompson warned there had been a 25 per cent increase in the cost of residential care.

Other areas of the 2021/22 budget to experience overspends include the Illuminations, which overspent by £266,000 including £99,000 from extending the lights until the end of December.

But savings made across other council services meant the total overspend on last year's £149m budget was £218,000.

These included savings of £1.1m by street cleansing and waste services thanks to a combination of reduced waste disposal costs and savings from the transfer of services to Enveco, the council-owned waste services company.

Coastal and Environment Partnerships achieved a £259,000 saving from additional grant income.

In 2021/22 the council also received £17.4m of Covid 19 grants to offset some of the financial pressures of the pandemic.