Council’s care funding concerns

The rising costs of children’s services and social care are significantly impacting the budget of the North East’s largest local authority, writes Local Democracy Reporter, Bill Edgar.

Durham County Council officials are concerned as forecasted costs for children and young people’s services are estimated to overspend by more than £9.5 million – markedly higher than earlier predictions. 

The largest area of spending is the current budget of more than £97 million for Children Looked After (CLA) services, currently £20 million higher than last year, causing officers to warn the costs are increasingly unsustainable. 

Councils are legally required to provide a range of services, including education, child and adult social care, waste collection and road maintenance. Yet the majority of budgets are increasingly being spent on providing care and support for children and adults. 

The number of children in care increased to 1,265 in the second quarter of this year, an increase since quarter one. County Durham has the sixth highest level of child poverty in the North East and the sixth highest rate of children in care of the 12 regional local authorities.  

Higher cost placements for children in the council’s care have put further pressure on service budgets, with officers warning that significant additional budget will need to be set aside in future years to meet this demand. 

The stark difference is primarily driven by a significant increase in the demand and cost of CLA placements due to the rising demand for external residential placements for complex children, particularly crisis response placements, which attract a significant cost premium per child. 

The local authority is also reeling from the rapid increase in Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) services. Durham County Council provides daily transport to 9,000 passengers with SEND and other special provisions, however, its budget has skyrocketed from £11.3 million in 2019/20 to an estimated £38.8 million for next year. 

Local authorities must provide free transportation for school-age children who are unable to walk to their nearest suitable school because of distance, SEND, or safety issues.

The specialist transport is described as playing a crucial role in getting children to school, but councils around the country are having to make cutbacks after becoming one of the largest spending pressures on local authority budgets.

Rising demand and costs have been interwoven with the rapid growth in Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). The increased number of cases means more expensive options such as taxis and passenger assistants are being utilised, dramatically increasing overall costs. 

The council has identified four key improvement areas to support the rising demands:

Support for children and young people to live outside of care – Further investment in the preventative offer to provide targeted support, ensuring more children and young people continue to live at home with their family and reduce the number of children entering care.

Family-based homes – Grow the in-house fostering offer, so it can care for more children and young people; provide more support to foster carers to prevent children’s living arrangements breaking down; and support more children to leave care when the time is right for them. 

Sufficiency for children’s homes – The development of new specialist in-house children’s homes to meet a range of needs and enable us to care for more children closer to home. 

Market management opportunities and broader work with the region – Review the cost of care to provide sustainable pricing across our children’s social care markets. Develop a regional Sufficiency Statement and work closely with providers to influence and shape new care provision based on local sufficiency needs.

Local authorities are due to hear this week how much money they will receive from the Government’s new multi-year finance settlement. Council officers in County Durham continue to work on balancing the authority’s budget before final approval in February.