Council to invest in new children's homes

A council in the Black Country is planning to invest in new children's homes to bring back 66 youngsters who were placed outside of their local borough.

It comes despite Dudley Council's children's services being forecast to spend £93.8m in the current financial year, an overspend of £6.7m, a meeting of the authority's social care and wellbeing scrutiny committee heard on Monday.

The extra spending has been blamed on the pressure on children's social care, particularly external residential placements.

To address the overspend, committee members heard the council was planning to increase the number of residential places in the borough.

Councillor Wayne Little, cabinet member for children and young people, told the committee that spending on children's services was going up by £12m to £99.2m for the next financial year, starting in April.

"That's a lot of money; why we have got to invest to save is pressure from the high cost of external placements and rising numbers and the costs within SEND (special educational needs and disability)," he said.

"We are investing in these areas to reopen our residential care homes and invest into fostering so we are bringing our children who are currently outside the area back into Dudley, which has a benefit but also consequently a benefit on budget."

Councillor Sue Ridney voiced her support for the policy, and said: "It is wrong to take children and dump them in another area and expect that they are going to be fine, it is better they are in our borough and being looked after by us.

"Children being placed outside the borough – we want to reduce the numbers further, I believe it can cost up to £6,000 a week for some placements."

Little told Ridney: "You are right, they are expensive. Our strategy is making sure we have got our children in Dudley receiving that care.

"We have got 66 external at the moment, they will vary in cost depending on the need."

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