Agenda item

The Committee received a presentation from the Head of Children’s Social Care that provided an overview of the councils Looked after Childrens Sufficiency Strategy, which had been requested by members at a meeting on 29 September 2023, where the Committee were keen to understand the financial pressures being faced within this service and what measures were being put in place to mitigate them (for copy see file of minutes).

R Farnham, Head of Children’s Social Care gave the presentation, which highlighted the purpose of the LAC Sufficiency Strategy, and the legal responsibilities and sufficiency duties that were placed on local authorities by The Children Act 1989.  She explained what drove the strategy, the cost pressures placed on the budget, the arrangements in place to monitor and manage placements and what was being done by the council to accommodate this.

She noted that corporate parenting was a collective responsibility of the council that this included elected members, all employees and partner agencies to care and safeguard the children in the service. She explained that there were circa 1200 children in the council’s care, which was 300 more than at the start of Covid19 pandemic.  The biggest contributor to the increased numbers was unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.  The numbers in residential care – particularly external residential care placements – were very expensive and was a national issue as the market could not keep up with demand.  There was a reported net overspend of £9.05 million expected in 2023/24, which was attributable to overspends on external residential/crisis and secure care placements, supported accommodation, independent fostering agencies and in-house children’s homes.  Factors affecting the sufficiency and costs included the increased complexity of children’s needs, the impact of covid, the lack of care options (market conditions), the increased use of external children’s homes (due to a lack of inhouse provision), the regulatory framework and the challenging marketplace for foster carers. 

P Darby commented that there were less mental health services throughout the NHS which had contributed to the complexity of conditions the council was dealing with and that previously if children had mental health issues they would have been more likely to committed to mental health wards but were now more likely to be cared for in the community and fall under the councils responsibility.

The Head of Children’s Social Care commented that there were lots of universal services that were difficult to recruit to and to retain staff in, which placed strain on the system.  The Care Review 2022 had made 80 recommendations on how to transform the system as it was recognised that it was in crisis and intervention was required.  

The Government had implemented the ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’ strategy to deliver reform to make funding available for pathfinders.  She gave examples of case studies that demonstrated the costs involved in placing children in either external children’s home or in a DCC children’s home depending on the circumstances and needs of the child. 

She highlighted what the local authority had done so far by implementing a comprehensive sufficiency strategy with investment plans, expanding the mocking bird hubs from 3 to 4, increased the number of long term children’s home to 10, developed a short break strategy, registered internal supported lodgings service with Ofsted and were included in the fostering regional pathfinders to have 31 foster carers assessed and approved by the end of the year.

Councillor A Watson thanked the Head of Children’s Social Care for the informative presentation.  He understood that it was a statutory requirement to look after children, whilst he was concerned that the service was over budget he was happy that the service was monitored regularly.

P Darby reiterated that the forecasted overspend of £9million was secondary to the needs of vulnerable children.  He commented that the Head of Children’s Social Care did a great job to keep the overspend as small as possible. He noted that children’s social care and adults social care had a huge impact on the council and was saddened that they were not at the forefront of government funding – particularly children’s social care, which affected authorities with higher levels of deprivation more than more affluent areas. 

R Farnham stated that the Northeast had the highest levels on demand and that Durham was average in the region, but that it bordered Teeside, which was the worst / had the highest level of demand.

Councillor B Kellett asked how places for children were allocated and what happened when there were insufficient places.

R Farnham responded that she would always look at internal provision first either through a Durham owned care home or through foster care that matched up with the care plan for the child.  If these options were not feasible, she would then look to make a referral to an external provider. Decisions on whether to accept the placement were out of the local authority’s control and because of the market conditions, providers could cherry pick which cases to take, which contributed to driving up costs.  She noted that many children were able to be looked after by connected carers and kept within their own families and that this was something the service sought to do first.

Councillor P Heaviside noted the cost of children in care.  He queried what the allowance was for a foster carer and if there had been any private providers who tried to poach them.  He acknowledged that it was difficult to find locations for new care homes for children as residents did not want them in their vicinity.

R Farnham stated that it was difficult to advise on the allowance for a foster carer as there were different payments depending on the different needs of a child.  She did note that an independent foster agency would cost approximately £1,000 per child per week and a foster carer’s allowance was less than that. In the future there was to be a review of foster carer allowances. She commented that there was always an issue with the potential poaching of foster parents.

P Darby referred that for an IFA it was approximately £50,000 per child whereas the same care from an inhouse Foster Carer was £30,000.

R Farnham stressed that the outcomes for a child were better if they were looked after inhouse as they were closer, staff could monitor them better and social workers could access them compared to independent care homes which were incredibly difficult to find and were often out of the area.  Finding properties to increase in-house provision of residential homes was difficult. It was essential to try to find large properties with big gardens that were in rural locations to prevent any disruption or impact on the community as far as possible and the planning and registration process with OfSted could take a long time.

Mr I Rudd acknowledged that it was better for inhouse care rather than care through a third party as the costs of some of the external placements mentioned were eyewatering.  He stated that levels of third-party care had grown by 25% and queried if the rates had now levelled off or was there an assumption they would continue at the same rate.

R Farnham advised that the service look at demand analysis and all information available to it to forecast what cases came in and those who would leave the system at 18 years old.  The issues were with younger children if preventative work was unsuccessful it meant they stayed longer.  She did not see any signs of the levels plateauing any time soon. 

P Darby commented that it was heartbreaking when a child came into a residential home at the age of 8 as they were more than likely to stay there for 10 years until they transitioned into adulthood.  He cautioned that Durham was slightly below average in terms of statistics as there was a lot of preventative work ongoing to try to avoid children going into the system.

Councillor L Fenwick asked if kinship parenting was included in the children’s social care figures and if these arrangements were under the remit of children’s social care.

R Farnham confirmed that the kinship carer figures were included in the overall numbers for children in care.  There was a big cohort with kinship arrangements with family members like grandparents.  These arrangements were within her remit as they did try to get a child cared for by someone within the family.  Reg 24 stated that a family carer would be paid as a foster carer as the children would become a looked after child under the remit of the kinship team.

Councillor T Smith mentioned that she had been contacted by an organisation that wanted to buy a 5 bed property to develop a private children’s home in her area.  She was concerned that these were money making schemes buying up cheap properties.

Mr C Robinson asked if anyone said no to the spending as in terms of external care providers the costs were very expensive and the council should be spending just what was required. 

P Darby agreed that external care providers were expensive but they could name their price as it was a statutory requirement for the local authority to provide care that was required to be given so he acknowledged that authorities were most likely being held to ransom.

Mr C Robinson queried if there was an element of deliberately under providing care capacity and whether something could be done differently as the costs were very high for external placements that the local authority should be trying to avoid.

R Farnham stressed that sometimes it was live or die decisions that were made if young people needed to be cared for outside of the County if their life depended on it.  She reassured the committee that every option available was explored before the local authority bought in high costed placements as they did their utmost to try to keep children cared for in Durham.

P Darby agreed that the council was undoubtedly being held to ransom, but there was an inability to mitigate this as there was a lack of inhouse care and spaces available so competitors could effectively name their price.  There was a need to place children in Ofsted registered care with certain levels of supervision that may be difficult to provide inhouse.  External providers were used if there was no alternative for a child where they could not remain in the family or their location as they needed to be placed somewhere.  He acknowledged that the market was broken and there was a need for legislation to fix it.

R Farnham advised that there had been a lot of work done and budget provision made in the medium-term financial plan for increasing inhouse provision.  Kinship provision was a new strategy introduced by the government but there would always be a need for high-cost placements.

Mr C Robinson understood the clear situation that the local authority had to work with. He noted that being a member of the audit committee he had been keen to know why there had been overspend in the service.

Councillor A Hanson questioned what percentage there was for kinship arrangements.

R. Farnham said she would have to get those figures outside of the meeting.

Postscript: R Farnham has advised that as at 25th March 2024 there were 217 CLA that were looked after in Friends or Family / kinship placements which was 18%.

Councillor A Hanson also mentioned that there was a private facility in her ward that looked after one child that gave 24 hour care who were also looking at other properties in the area.   She regretted not having had the facts and figures that had been included in the presentation on how much these facilities cost when she visited the property as she did not realise how expensive they were.

P Darby stated that in the last statistics 230 out of 1200 children were placed with family members.

R Farnham mentioned that there were more foster carers waiting to be assessed to be part of the care system.  They did look at family members or foster carers as a first resort before looking at an IFA.

Councillor A Watson did not appreciate that looked after children’s costs were so phenomenal and were effectively out of the control of the Council and could get worse dependant on need. He found the presentation to be very informative and thanked R Farnham for attending the committee.

Resolved:

That the presentation be noted.