Bradford Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said decisions that will have to be made in light of the local authority's financial situation “will not be popular.”
Referring to the current financial situation, she said: “Our finances, like many other across the country, are in a perilous position.
“We are being forced to look at all the services that we provide and make extremely difficult decisions and we know these will not be popular and will have an impact on our residents.
“The Bradford Children and Families Trust is led by a respected and experienced chief executive and I am calling on the government to make sure that is properly funded.
“We need the government to provide better funding for disadvantaged children across the children’s social care sector nationally.
“But specifically in Bradford we know that we have the youngest population in the country as well as a high level of social need.
“The Competitions and Markets Authority identified a dysfunctional market in which a small number of providers make excessive profits and Government needs to address this urgently.
“In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor did not even mention the funding crisis faced by local council services and in particular he didn’t mention the word ‘children’ at all. “There’s a huge gap in funding for children’s social care services across the country including here in Bradford.”
A statement from the Council after the report was published said: “The numbers of children in care rose by 61 per cent between 2012 to 2022 while the rate of children in need increased by more than 60 per cent over a similar period.
“The cost of providing placements for children has increased with residential placements going up from an average cost of £3,600 a week for each child in 2020-21 to an average £6,000 per week in 2023.
“For context this means that the average cost for one placement each per year is now £312,000, which is similar to the annual council subsidy of a small leisure centre.
“As a measure of the extraordinary pressures facing the Council, forecast spend on Children’s Services and Adult Social Care would be equivalent to over 87 per cent of the Councils approved budget in 2023-24.”
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