Conwy: Council spending £25,000 a week on care for one child!

 

So we have a child unit in Abergele that was the old Cedar Court, which is often virtually empty and the new Carbuncle assessment unit for children dumped in Eirias park

, and we are wasting £25k rather than placing the child there!

All very odd indeed. One wonders exactly what are the childs needs? Why cant this be printed?

The childs identity will be protected, but don't we have a right to know if it's using our money?

CONWY County Borough Council has been spending about £25,000 a week on the care of an individual child for the last year.

This was revealed following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the council, who confirmed that it commissioned a placement providing this care to the child in November 2024.

As a result, the council has spent more than £1.1million on this child’s care since this was commissioned.

The council’s response to the FOI request read: “There are a limited number of facilities that can provide the necessary care and support for children with very complex health and social care needs. 

“In the case referenced in your enquiry, a child required full-time specialised accommodation, care and education, the cost of which is approximately £25,000 per week.

“It provides 4:1 staffing, 24 hours a day, including waking nights.

“We can confirm that Conwy County Borough Council has commissioned a placement providing this level of care for 12 months (November 2024 – present).

“The total expenditure to-date is £1,188,694.78 gross actual expenditure, and £1,101,828.37 net expenditure and income.”

This followed members of the council’s governance and audit committee being told at a meeting in September that the local authority is paying large sums for children it is obliged to look after.

Abergele councillor Paul Luckock said at this meeting that the funding was “a profound issue” in terms of whether the authority was getting “value for money”.

He said: “We are spending enormous sums of money; I mean, (according to) my best information from social services, (on) one child alone, we are spending over a million pounds a year.”

The meeting’s chairman Ian Whyte said he shared Cllr Luckock’s concern and “was taken aback by the sums of money involved”.

From....https://www.northwalespioneer.co.uk/news/25700182.conwy-council-spending-25-000-week-care-one-child/