A council is looking to bring children in care back into the town as 70 young people are placed outside the town at “astronomical” cost.
Middlesbrough councillors said the efforts to “test out” buying more properties locally would help children in care and save money. However the council faces financial difficulties and nationally there is a struggle with placing young people, with “no guarantee” of places for young people in need of protection, a Middlesbrough Council overview and scrutiny board meeting heard.
Councillor Zafar Uddin, executive member for children’s services, said the authority had 70 children placed externally. He said: “It’s quite expensive places. We’re not just concerned about the money at this point.
“When children are placed externally, they lose out in many ways. I would say, can we bring those children back to our local area? If we can bring them back here, we have given them some flexibility and freedom, they are nearer to home and nearer to their friends and so on.”
Cllr Jim Platt asked: “How many properties do you plan to purchase and how are you going to fund purchasing those properties? It was £56m (the budget for children’s services) last year and most of that money went to external agencies.
“The average child at the moment is costing this council £5,600 a week. That is an astronomical amount of money, so the sooner you purchase these properties – I don’t know where you’re going to get the money to purchase them but the sooner we do it, the better.”
Cllr Ian Blades said the new properties would save money in the largest part of the council’s budget: “It would be paid for by saving money. We wouldn’t be paying £5,600 in residential fees elsewhere. That’s the whole purpose of it, to save money.
“The kids will be looked after as well, if not better, but it’ll also be financially better off for the council. Instead of costing us money it’ll save money.”
Cllr Uddin said: “We’ve got currently seven residential homes. What we looked at is bringing as many young children back into our area, We initially looked at 21 children to bring back.
“Unfortunately because of the financial difficulties we cannot go into details. We’ve got two children’s homes we’re acquiring at the moment.
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“We’ve got four places. At this point I can’t say exactly how many we’re going to bring back. We feel the children would be better off nearer home.
“If we can, we will… At the moment we’ve got to do what we can with what we’ve got.”
Dawn Alaszewski, interim director of children’s care, said: “We can see that the situation needs to be looked at and we need to have a plan. We’re doing lots and lots of work in the background as to re-evaluating where things are at, what we can do slightly differently moving forward to make the situation better for our children but also financially.
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