Wrexham Council social care spend increased 49.7% year on year over last five years

Wrexham Council’s social care spend increased 49.7% year on year over last five years, despite inflation for the same period hovering around 19.8 per cent.

Wrexham Council say that between 2018/19 financial year and 2022/23 financial year the collective net expenditure in Social Care has increased from £57.7million to £86.4 million.

The cash limited budget between the same period has increased from £56.9 million to £74.9 million.

This week members of the safeguarding, well-being and scrutiny committee will receive an update on the “Social Care’s budgetary position over the last 5 years providing an indication of the reasons for the changes during this time”.

The main reason for the huge cost increase in children’s services is put down to “increases in the number of staff required to support an increasing caseload, the level of those staff who were and are employed through an agency and the increase cost of placements during this time.

On top of this the number of children requiring specialised education placements have increased at a significant cost.

In this week’s report the council explain: “In this period Children’s Services net expenditure has increased from £15.8 million to £38.1 million and Adult Services net expenditure has increased from £41.9 million to £48.3 million.

“The overall net expenditure increase constitutes a 49.7% increase year on year. This compares to normal inflation increase and pay inflation during this period of 19.8%.”

In the same period the number of children “looked after by Wrexham Council has increased from 255 in April 2018 to 352 in March 2023″.

Over the five years the number of children in residential placements has increased from 18 to 36.

The report states: “What is evident is that both the overall number of children accommodated in residential care and their percentage of the total children in care has increased.

“As these placements are significantly more costly the overall cost of residential placements for LAC children has increased from £3,049,296 (2018-2019 financial year) to £10,283,628 (2022-2023 financial year).”

Special educational placements are also detailed, again with a five year view: “In April 2018 Wrexham supported 11 children in specialist educational placements at an average cost of £45k each.

“By March 2023 this number has increased to 62 children at an average cost of £53k each.”

Council Officers say the increase in looked after children locally is likely due to the following list, with areas likely to provoke a range of questions as to why from councillors:

• Levels of child poverty in Wrexham have increased significantly.
• The Covid Pandemic had a detrimental effect on children and family life with the consequences of the pandemic continuing to be realised in
  increased number of families struggling and increased numbers of children presenting with dysregulated behaviours and mental health problems necessitating their removal from parents.
• Wrexham Children’s Services were categorised as a Service of Concern in early 2020 with CIW expressing concerns about the Department’s ability to maintain the safety of children within Wrexham. In the short term this will have contributed to increases in those children in care.
• The number of children with complex needs and the requirement for us to intervene as necessitated by legislation has increased during this period.

Staff costs are also detailed: “In 2019/20 the overall cost of staffing within Children’s Social Care was £9.33 million with agency staffing making up over £2.5 million of this total.

“In 2022/23 the overall total was over £18.5 million with agency staffing constituting £7.7 million of this total”.

After a few weeks of silence on budget cuts progress, the public have some actual detail from a department on what is going on as the council hunts £23.8 million pounds in-year – let alone what next year could bring.

£5.1m of ‘low risk’ savings are detailed, with Social Care targetted at making £8.4m of overall savings – no doubt prompting questions from councillors over what was not done earlier and why – with some already questioning if the proverbial optimum boat has been missed on property revaluations. Questions may also be raised around the widely rumoured issues around historic agency staff expenses processes.

The list of ‘low risk’ savings are listed as:

• £1.578 million of savings are proposed through directing grant sources to support some areas of service provision

• In Children’s Services it is estimated that £394k can be delivered through supporting children in lower cost placements and more locally based placements.

• In Children’s Services we believe that £1.02 million can be achieved through changes in staffing including agency staff becoming permanent and some staff changes in teams.

• Additional income of £600,000 will be generated by property revaluations and progressing Court of Protection arrangements in a more timely way is predicted in Adult Services.

• Property revaluations will be made where a person receiving long-term residential care continues to own a property and charges are based on historical values for that property.

Councillors will receive the report, and a section of the meeting looks likely to move to ‘Part 2’ secret session due to the nature of the discussions around contracts and jobs.

The Safeguarding, Communities and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee meet on 13 September and you can watch in person or online.