Council set to buy three properties in Stafford to use as children’s homes

Earlier this year plans to open six new children’s homes were revealed by the authority to help meet demand for places for youngsters in care.

Running six children’s homes could save the county council around £500,000 a year compared to the cost of placing 12 children with external independent providers at an average cost per child of £7,500 per week, a report said.

Each proposed home would accommodate up to two children.

At two recent property sub-committee meetings members approved the purchase of properties in Sandpiper Drive and Redruth Drive in Stafford and a property in Church Road, Hixon, for use as children’s homes.

The decisions were made behind closed doors but have since been published in the meeting minutes.

Natasha Moody, assistant director for wellbeing and partnerships at Staffordshire County Council, said: “Providing a safe and nurturing environment for some of our most vulnerable children is vitally important.

"Most local authorities are facing challenges in this area, which is why it is important we plan effectively to help meet their needs.

“We recently proposed opening six in-house children’s homes, of which these homes in Stafford borough are the first.

"By opening our own in-house children’s homes, we can ensure our vulnerable children will be taken care of in a home within the county, have better flexibility for those with multiple needs, and we can create more stability for children in our care to help them thrive.

“As well as this, we can be sure to have vulnerable children and young people in the right home that meets their needs and increase the number of children and young people who return to the family home wherever possible.”

At this month’s cabinet meeting members heard that the council had seen a £9.7m overspend in its children’s services budget “due to significantly higher demand than forecast”.

But Councillor Ian Parry, cabinet member for finance and resources, added that the authority was now “seeing a reduction in demand of children coming into the care system.”

The 2023/24 financial outturn report to cabinet said: “At the end of March, the number of children in care (CiC) was 1,319 (1,231 excluding unaccompanied asylum seekers).

"This is the lowest it has been all year and 66 (five per cent) lower than at the highest point at the end of July 2023.

“Demand remains significantly higher than the level afforded within the budget, especially for more expensive residential provision.

"Given the pressure which has accumulated through the year, the CiC Placements budget and Section 17 support, exacerbated by rising costs of inflation, is £9.5m overspent.”

Councillor Mark Sutton, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “During the past 12 months the number of children in our care has slowly and steadily reduced.

"That amounts to a lot of hard work on behalf of our staff in working with families; in the first instance to try and ensure that children are kept with families where they can and don’t need to go into the care system.

“Having said that, when a child is in need for a safeguarding reason to come into care, we will always make that right and proper decision going forward.

"The overspend in children’s services relates to the high cost of residential placements.

“To that end, we are trying hard to bolster our foster care offer and ensure we have sufficient foster carers, so that is a good and also first alternative for when children come into care where they stay with a loving family.

"In relation to the high cost of residential care, we are looking to tackle this in one main way and this is the introduction over the next 12 months of a series of our own residential children’s homes that will be managed internally by ourselves.

“This will help to address the higher costs, give more capacity in the market and make it easier for our placements team to look for the right places for our children.

"That will give us the opportunity going forward to ensure that we always have the right place and right opportunity for the children we take into our care.

“We absolutely owe children in the county that. It will also address the cost, which is important because every penny we have to spend on children in high cost residential in the private market, we’re not able to spend that money on the whole of the system in looking after and preventing children going into care and working with families going forward.”