Council pays £10k a week for child care packages

Leicestershire County Council has said it is being forced into paying "extortionate" fees to place children in residential homes, with some packages costing the authority an average of £10,000 a week per child.

Councillors discussed ways of cutting the costs of children's social care in a wider debate on Monday about the Reform UK-led authority's aim of making £58.7m of annual efficiency savings.

The council's spending is predicted to outstrip its income by £85m by 2030.

Officials said funding a growing demand for social care, both for children and adults, was the most significant financial challenge it faced.

Sharon Cooke, the council's interim director of children and family services, told a scrutiny commission meeting that a shortage of registered homes had allowed private providers to inflate what they charge the authority.

She said: "At any one time, we have approximately 11 children living in residential care where they could live in a foster family if we were able to find it, and some of those children are of a very young age.

"While good quality residential care plays an important part in the care of some children, currently we have children living in residential homes when they don't need to.

"The shortage of registered homes means providers are currently charging extortionate fees for places and, on occasions, forcing us to use unregulated or unregistered homes for periods of time.

"Currently, a foster home will cost us between £800-a-week in-house, to about just over £1,000 for an Independent Fostering Agency (IFA).

"A mainstay residential home costs us in the region of £10,000 per week per child, and some that are offering homes for children with more complex needs are far more expensive than that."

The meeting was told the authority has "a couple" of residential placements for children with complex needs, costing £35,000 a week each.

Conservative county councillor James Poland described the costs of residential care as "staggering" and "astounding".

Fellow Conservative Phil King said the cost of some children's social care was "eyewatering".

Scrutiny commission chair Deborah Taylor said attempts to recruit more foster carers were under way before Reform took control of the council in 2025 and were not a new thing.

Cooke acknowledged it had been be "extremely challenging" to recruit foster families, but said efforts would be renewed and the fees the council paid would be increased to encourage carers to join the authority from IFAs.

The proposed savings on children's care packages are among 13 areas of savings identified in what council leader Dan Harrison said was a "root and branch" review of all elements of the council's £1.3bn annual spending.

The Reform minority administration has paid £1.4m to consultants Newton to carry out the six-month review.

Newton and other external consultants could be paid up to £23m over the next three years if savings were delivered, the authority said.

Council finance officers said they were confident at least £22.7m of savings would be achieved and that could potentially "stretch" to £58.7m.

There are about £28m of "up-front" costs, but the council said that would be repaid after three years by the continuing savings.

The authority added the review savings would be on top of £44m of cuts it has already approved in its medium-term financial plan over the next four years.

Opposition councillors described the efficiency review as "high risk", warning that it would be expensive to implement and might not deliver the required savings.

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