MORE children are being taken into care across the North East amid fears rising unemployment is to blame.
The rise has resulted in a funding crisis for North East councils as soaring numbers of children are placed in care homes.
Ministers are to be lobbied for extra cash as a result of the 14% average increase.
Across the region, councils have reported multi-million pound overspends, with many North East councils among those facing the greatest increases in England.
One chief executive told The Journal the rise was partly due to the pressure placed on families as a result of the economic downturn, with domestic violence reports leading to more council interventions. He added that rising unemployment was expected to see the situation facing council bosses worsen.
Social workers have also been steadily increasing the number of care applications made following public outrage during the Baby P case, in which care workers failed to prevent death of Peter Connolly in Haringey in 2007.
This week Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell will back a charity report warning that rising unemployment and increasing food and fuel bills are contributing to the growing number of child neglect cases.
In Newcastle, the council has seen its children’s services department run £2.8m over-budget as 545 are taken into care. City leaders say they changes to Government grants and cuts in funding have left them with £4m less than they previously had available to help vulnerable children.
The council is this week set to agree to create a so-called “task and finish group” looking at the cause of the increases and the growing problem of domestic violence.
Joanne Kingsland, Newcastle cabinet member for children’s services, said the region needed to understand what was behind the rise. Ms Kingsland said: “The increase does not seem to be stopping, it is steadily rising. Previously these issues were funded through several specific grants, but they have now all been un-ringfenced and merged to cover a variety of issues, but the end result is we have some £4m less than we would previously have had for this.”
The Association of North East Councils has already warned central Government spending chiefs that the situation is worsening. It cited South Tyneside, where a £2m increase in costs to children’s services has been blamed on “record numbers of children entering care”, with 80 more children coming to the attention of authorities, an increase on the 315 recorded last year.
Paul Watson, chair of the association, said ministers must free up extra funding. The Sunderland council leader added: “It is clear from national statistics and local experience that there has been a higher increase over the last three years in the numbers of looked after children in the North East and the North West.
“As the North East already faces significant cost pressures in children’s services, this is a critical area for us to focus on as councils, as well as in discussions with Government.
“A potential solution would be to use extra business rates income or from extra income expected to be generated in 2011/12 and 2012/13 to help meet cost pressures in children’s services and to provide extra funding for looked after children”.
Newcastle Council’s cabinet will meet to discuss the overspend this Wednesday.
