Children-in-care costs lead to predicted overspend

The "unprecedented demand" on funding for children in care with complex needs has led to forecast overspends in a number of areas at Lincolnshire County Council, a senior officer has said.

A report to the council's audit committee said the "growing complexity of need" for children in care had contributed to an overspend in the budget.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the heightened demand resulted in a forecast overspend of £12.6m between April and June this year.

At a committee meeting on Monday, Pam Clipson, the council's head of financial services, said costs were "playing out in a number of areas" including home-schooling and transport, "particularly in the SEND area".

"It is also playing out in some of our other children's related services and how they transition from children to adults," Clipson added.

Committee member Cain Parkinson, a Conservative, said the authority was seeing "quite significant overspends in a number of areas".

He questioned whether the council needed to "look into how we do those forecasts on potential spends" so that they "consistently deliver based on what the actual spending is".

However, Andrew Middleton, an independent, said it was a difficult situation to predict.

He added: "The difference between a moderate need and a higher level need can be three, four, five thousand a week.

"You don't need that many [children] with that level of need to add up to an awful lot of money."

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