Social work needs millions more

SOCIAL work services will need millions more next year as demands for children’s residential care shows no signs of letting up.

Dumfries and Galloway Councillors have previously ploughed in an additional £3.276m into the social work budget due to financial pressures, with the expectation that this would be drawn down over the period 2023/24 to 2025/26.

However, the cash dwindled due to an overspend once again on residential placements for children and young people, along with a higher bill for foster care allowances.

A budget report, which is due to be presented at Dumfries and Galloway Council’s social work committee next week, confirms that £1.913m of reserves cash was used to balance the books in 2024/25.

An additional £3m has been allocated for 2025/26 – beyond the additional investment measures for 2024/25 – taking the total 2025/26 budget allocated for children’s residential placements to £8.52m.

In the budget report, council finance officer Janet Sutton wrote: “Residential placements overspent by £2.287m against the agreed allocated resources due to an increase in the number of children requiring a residential placements, and an increase in the average cost of individual placements (due to the complexity of cases being presented).

“This was slightly higher than previously estimated due to increases in the cost of individual placement packages during the last quarter of the financial year, which were required to address changes in the needs of individual children.

“There were 32 young people in residential placements at the end of the financial year, which was 11 above the agreed target, and the primary reason for the associated overspend.

“In addition, fostering allowances returned an overspend of £204,000 due to the increased number of external placements that have been required, related to the ongoing challenges to recruit and retain foster carers.

“The service is continuing with the recruitment campaign for local foster carers, however, following the national trend this is proving to be extremely challenging.”

The impact of these budgetary pressures has been partially mitigated by underspends across other service areas, primarily in relation to staff vacancies because of the national shortage of qualified social workers.

The service also received additional income in relation to trainee social worker placements and unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

The council budget report states: “The pressures being experienced in relation to children’s residential placements will continue to be subject to close monitoring.”