Conservatives challenge £1.5m care homes bill

DECISION TO BUY CHILDREN’S HOMES TO BE DEBATED BY COUNCILLORS

- By GARETH LIGHTFOOT Local democracy reporter [e-mail]

A COUNCIL’S decision to spend almost £1.5m on buying two houses for three children in care has been challenged by the Conservatives.

Labour leaders on Stockton Council’s cabinet decided last month to purchase two homes in the borough to house three children with “mental health challenges and behavioural distress” under proposals to stop relying on expensive homes out of town.

The council said it aimed to tackle the need for specialist placements for the borough’s most vulnerable children, to care for them in-house and avoid putting them in costly, unregulated and “unlawful” private residential care.

It decided to buy the homes for an estimated £1.47m, with half of the money to come from the Department for Education (DfE) and the rest from a £20m council investment fund.

They would refurbish, fit out and equip the homes, and run them for £1.5m a year.

Councillor Clare Besford, cabinet member for children and young people, said it was “a small-scale solution to some of our most expensive out-of-borough placements” in a “very broken system’.

However, Conservative group leader Cllr Tony Riordan has questioned the decision, saying the council needed to take more urgent action to get children out of unregulated placements.

The two parties agree on the principle of buying houses for children in care, but seem to differ on how far the measures go.