By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
There are plans in place to “break the cycle” of overspending in the Children and Young People’s department at Nottinghamshire County Council.
At the full council meeting on February 24, the authority outlined its plans for the department, which has a forecasted £1.7m overspend.
But the costs should not be accepted as an “ongoing inevitability”, councillor Richard Jackson (Con) said.
The spiralling costs were partly down to the closure of Minster View home in Southwell as children were placed in private placements instead during the pandemic.
Cllr Jackson said the costs and loss of income to the authority as a whole directly associated with Covid amounts to around £138m – a cost which will continue to accumulate.
Leader of the council Ben Bradley MP said: “We can’t continue to send more and more children to residential care, we cant continue to send so many to expensive external placements.
“We are investing in our young people, in children’s homes in Ashfield because that is the right thing to do. Those young people are our greatest asset and they deserve a good start.”
Cllr Jackson said the financial pressures are “perhaps the most obvious” in the children and families department.
He said: “In view of the forecast £1.7m overspend on the children and young people’s committee budget, Nottinghamshire saw an 8.7 per cent rise in the number of children in care from 2019/20 to 2021.
“This administration will not accept overspend on children’s services as an ongoing inevitability.”
He said the authority has been working to “break the cycle” of budget pressures in the department.
But he added: “We owe it to the vulnerable children and to taxpayers to achieve a more predictable and sustainable children’s services position.
“That said, we will never seek to achieve this at the expense of children’s safety.
“The recent appalling cases of the 16-month old Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes demonstrate why we must get it right, and get it right every time.”
He said the authority has commissioned Essex County Council to act as a “critical friend” to Nottinghamshire.
He said £1.1m of investment, which was approved last year, combined with existing budgets, will enable the authority to create “a more stable social carer workforce” by growing the number of apprenticeships and providing more support for newly qualified workers.
The authority is also investing in “modern” residential care properties which “deliver good quality compared with the larger scale instructions of the past”.
He said during the administration, it is expected that there will be a “de-escalation of need” with fewer children requiring care proceedings.
He added: “We forecast that this can ease the pressure on our committee budgets, not least on our children and young people’s budget, by between £2 and £7m.
Tracy Taylor, chairman of the Children and Young People’s Committee, added that the authority will be “more ambitious” for children who move into care, focusing on their strengths instead of weaknesses.
She added that £270,000 will be spent on establishing a focused team for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
She said: “In the coming year, we plan to spend over £160m revenue and £43m in capital supporting Nottinghamshire’s children and young people.
“My aim is to ensure Nottinghamshire’s children’s services maintain our good Ofsted rating and we are working now to become outstanding as soon as we can.”
Councillors voted 34 votes to 26 to approve the 2022/23 budget.
