To think this is a shocking waste of taxpayer’s money??

[Ticklyoctopus]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9v12dwddmwo.amp

Not the boy having some form of placement or help of course, but 300k for a little over 4 months! I’m sure this will be ‘controversial’ but I think we need to seriously rethink how much can be spent on just 1 person, unless (for example) they need round the clock nursing care to stay alive and specialist medical equipment of course.

The placement sounds like a great programme but I’d definitely be keen to see a breakdown of what that weekly cost covers.

They pay this and next they want to get rid of ehc plans

It's so unfair !!!

While this cost is really shocking and the judge clearly suspects profiteering, I wouldn't be surprised if these places are incredibly expensive to run - given that they're taking children who have been deemed potentially dangerous, they presumably need specialist facilities, 24 hour staff who it says are specially trained, and a very high ratio of them to the children.

I assumed this was part of an EHC plan??

That is truly shocking. There needs to be greater oversight of how money is spent on individual cases. How is it that one person has that much money spent on them while other children and teenagers can’t even get one hour of therapy?????

If someone is that dangerous they should be medicated and sectioned/incarcerated.

I assumed this would be one of those ‘shock factor’ articles where the small print would reveal some significant factors why this level of spending was necessary as is often the case, but the judge’s remarks were:

I am, time and again presented with cases where a local authority has secured provision that can cost anything between £12,000 and £20,000 per week. That is now a regular feature in this sort of case and the concern is that local authorities just cannot continue to fund places at that astronomical cost

It seems to be a common thing.

This is how taxpayers' money is going to get spent now. It is so far beyond unsustainable. Essentially private companies are going to charge ££££££ for such services and the council/govt are just going to cough up without much critical thought.

I've name changed to put this, but I know of a private school that has literally just closed due to VAT and subsequent pupil number decline. The people in charge have hatched a plan to get mega money instead of operating the private school. They are going to make it in to a sort of special school, which is private and they are going to be collecting between 50,000 to 100,000 per child per year from the council as the parents will not be charged.

This is just a new way for the government to hemorrhage money and for private individuals to benefit to the tune of millions. I absolutely don't deny that children with SEN are in dire need of help (my own ds has autism). But the help does not need to be into 6 figures for a few weeks for one child.

Absolutely @rasnnz this isn’t a critique of disabled children, just a ‘reasonably how much can we actually spend on 1 child’. As I said there are things that you expect would cost this much (specialised medical treatment for a child who is undergoing rehab having been in a severe car accident, that kind of thing). But just ‘outdoor activities’ for a child who has fallen in with a bad crowd?!

I used to be involved in finding rehab placements for people with brain injury. Whilst the rehab is undoubtedly expensive these providers have got the LAs and health authorities well and truly by the balls.
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To be fair to the authorities it was not they who set up the mass privatisation of services and these possibilities for profiteering. They are just trying to do their best for individuals in the context of this every-man-for-himself system.

I don't see how it can cost that much. Let's imagine it's 2:1 direct supervision/support. Then plus catering staff, cleaners, other activity staff, teachers, food, supplies, maintenance of the equipment and site, accomodation. Even then it would be less than £17k a week surely?

I’d agree OP and it’s the thin edge of the wedge. There are over 1500 children in placements of over £500000 per year. Often these are unregulated and the outcomes are poor. They seem like a conveyer to drugs, sexual abuse, violence and teen pregnancy. At least this placement seems to offer something.

I think care should be brought back into public domain. It’s a massive false economy shutting down children’s homes.

Not saying this boy is disabled btw, I meant the system as a whole.

Presumably the cost of this will save a lifetime of crime, prison sentences, damage to the community and so on. Not that I don’t think it is horrendously expensive.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wj5v711zzo.amp

Meant to include this article.

The article sort of makes it sound like this is some optional extra, a jaunt out from his usual time living at home, and he's being sent for his own edification - but article also says that "Judge Parker said the only alternative was "unregulated" accommodation which he said was often just as expensive and could be ineffective." This makes it clear that actually he needs a residential placement - he's in care and needs somewhere to take him. As the judge says, if this is the only residential placement that'll take him, what real choice do the council have but to pay it? You can - and should - criticise private companies who make big profits (on average 23%, apparently!) on running children's care homes, but I can't really see how you can blame councils for paying it. They have no other option but to just leave children in care with no home at all.

I doubt one 4 month activity course will actually achieve that though. He will clearly continue to need intensive and expensive support and even then it may not work out. It often doesn’t in fact.

Exactly this. That kind of money should be spent on prevention, not cure. £280k could provide therapy for hundreds of children to heal them and break the abuse cycle.

It’s just so, so much money. At 17 I imagine he’s only months away from adulthood. I agree we need to reopen many more state run children’s homes.

I suspect that may be a slightly naive or optimistic take on it.

That’s not unusual. I work in health that funds complex care packages. I know of young people and adults who are in long term placements or have care packages that cost £10k+ a week. I can think of 5 or 6 off the top of my head in our county alone. Still cheaper than the children who are stuck in critical care beds in children’s hospitals because they can’t find specialist placements.

Are you referring to placements for SEMH type issues or physical health ones?

But the council surely can't legally just go 'oh well, this problem will solve itself in a few months'? They have to keep trying to find him a residential placement while they're still obliged to - and the article suggests they have been trying to do so for some time. They didn't pick this option out of a long list of ones open to them.

I agree that the actual answer is state-run children's homes - which will still be really expensive to run for the most high-need cases, but at least won't be skimming profit off the top. But this is what you get from short-term outlooks and a public who don't want to resource local authorities to spend money. Closing the council-run homes and outsourcing it would have looked like a big short-term cash injection and that's why it was done, even though it was fairly obviously a bad idea in the medium-term.