Councillors are hoping plans to open two new children’s homes will help bring down the ‘eye watering’ residential care costs the council faces.

Cambridgeshire County Council said it is currently spending over £16,500 per child per week for a residential care placement.

The authority also admitted that it is still “unfortunately” placing children in unregistered settings due to the “limited registered options available”.

Officers said they were working with Ofsted to try and “fast track” the registration of these homes.

The county council has set out plans to open two new children’s homes to provide care for children and young people with the most complex needs.

Officers told councillors at a children and young people committee meeting this week (June 25) that the authority is planning to convert two properties it already owns into these new homes.

They explained that they planned to agree a cap for the care costs with a provider contracted to run the homes.

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Dr Andy Stone, representative on the committee from the Diocese of East Anglia, said the £16,596 cost per child per week for an unregistered placement referenced in the report was an “eye watering sum”.

He asked what the county council’s plan was to try and reduce those costs.

Officers highlighted that the weekly costs had been much higher and that the figure in the report was the result of work to bring costs down.

Last November the chief executive of the county council, Stephen Moir, highlighted an example of the high costs being faced, telling councillors that one child’s placement had been costing the county council £85,000 a week.

Officers said locally and nationally more children were coming forward with complex needs, while there was also a shortage of children’s homes.

They explained that the authority had been working to bring down the costs, including trying to reduce the number of children placed in homes outside of the county.

Officers said the county council currently only owned three children’s homes which offered short term breaks for children with disabilities, but said it had no mainstream children homes.

They told councillors that by opening two new children’s homes they planned to be able to agree a cost cap with the provider during the tendering process.

Officers suggested this cap could be around £8,000 to £12,000 per child per week, but said they would not know for certain what the agreed cap would be until they went out to tender.

Councillors said they supported continuing with the plans to open two new children’s homes in the county.

Officers said a report is expected to be published in September with more information on the two properties proposed to be converted.

The county council has said it hopes to have the new homes up and running in 2025.