Two new residential homes could reduce £16,500 per child per week cost of looking after children in care in Cambridgeshire

Opening two new children’s homes will help Cambridgeshire County Council bring down “eye-watering” residential care costs.

These are currently averaging more than £16,500 per child per week for an unregistered placement.

The council admitted it was “unfortunately” placing children in care in such settings due to the “limited registered options available”.

Officers said they were working with Ofsted to try and “fast track” the registration of these homes.

But the council has set out plans to open two new residential children’s homes to provide care for children and young people with the most complex needs. These could include children with complex behavioural presentations, and those who have suffered significant trauma or adverse childhood experiences, and those with attachment difficulties.

Converting two properties it owns into residential children’s homes, to be operated by an external provider with a cap on care cores, would save the council an estimated £638,976 a year, the children and young people committee heard last week. If the service was run in-house, it would save £438,984,

Dr Andy Stone, a representative on the committee from the Diocese of East Anglia, said the £16,596 cost per child per week for an unregistered placement was “eye-watering”.

Officers said the figure had been much higher and work had already been carried out to bring the costs down.

Last November, the council’s chief executive, Stephen Moir, told councillors that one child’s placement had been costing the authority £85,000 a week.

Officers said locally and nationally more children were coming forward with complex needs, while there was also a shortage of children’s homes.

The council has been making efforts to reduce the number of children placed in homes outside of the county, cutting them off from family, friends and their local community.

In 2022, The Good Law Project argued the council had failed to meet its sufficiency duty because of the number of children in care living at a distance from Cambridgeshire. Although the courts did not uphold that view, efforts to build capacity within the county have been a priority.

There were 24 children’s homes as of August 2022, providing up to 127 beds and operated by 15 separate organisations. Of these, 18 were in Fenland district, with two each in East Cambridgeshire, South Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire.

Officers told last week’s meeting that the council currently owns only three children’s homes that offer short-term breaks for children with disabilities, but said it had no mainstream children homes.

By operating two new children’s homes, it hoped to agree a cost cap between £8,000 to £12,000 per child per week with providers, although the exact sum would not be known until the tendering process.

Councillors backed the move, and an update is expected in September, with the homes potentially opening in 2025.