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.

This with bells on.

Oh yes, we have some of those too. A Rolls Royce with personalised plate, something awful like Bo55 as well.

They could develop centres that provide these services in house if they wanted and thought they could do it for less money. So if there really is profiteering going on there’s an obvious and fairly easy solution

While I agree that care facilities should be moved back to the control of the LA, the overheads for that would be monumental and not ‘fairly easy’ when you consider legal costs, planning permission etc, especially in the context of a huge resistance to any increase in taxes from lots of the general public. It’s classic public sector short term-ism. I see it all the time in the NHS. Spending lots of 200Ks over time is easier than spending millions and millions at once, even if those millions might save money in the long run.

It is shocking and private equity backed venture capitalists are providing care (including children's homes) and making millions in profit. In three years in three regions private companies made £250 MILLION in profit. It is a scandal.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1989368465464213928.html

If we could rein in the cash spent on private care, there would be more money for services.

Tip of the iceberg OP. I was regularly being asked to sign off on multiples of similar on a weekly basis. One of the reasons i left the public sector…the money needs to be best spent on the many, not the few.

See the outrage about lifting the two child limit.

You can tell people till you're blue in the face about how raising children in poverty will prove more expensive in the long run and you'll still get "I don't want my taxes to go to people who shouldn't have had kids".

I think everyone agrees with you to be honest. The problem is that this is the cost currently, in many areas. The alternative to overpriced private (and often unregulated) care can’t be ‘let him run the streets’ though, so it has to be paid unless or until changes to children’s social care are made. Hopefully if this news is news to you then you will direct your ire to lobbying your MP.

I’m not sure that’s quite right. I don’t have complex medical needs but, if I did, I’d accept whatever NHS resources I needed. And I’d hope people wouldn’t think ‘money should be spent on the many, not the few’.

You do you, but unless it was a life and death scenario I don’t feel I’d ever be comfortable taking out considerably more than I had put in for me or my family. Especially for things like horse riding, art classes, trampolining and photography, all of which featured regularly in plans of young people I worked with who had spurious reports written by those providing the provision at great expense.

If anyone is interested in the types of accommodation and services provided.
www.securechildrenshomes.org.uk/secure-accommodation-network/

That is appalling. Is it worth telling Private Eye, and your local MP?

In this area, I am aware of several families where the spend per child is in excess of £300k/year. We have children who are getting riding lessons funded by the council under the guise of it being 'equine therapy'. And a local resident who sells her services advising others on how to get the 'best' EHCP they can.

I hate the way this makes me feel. I want disadvantaged kids to be given opportunities to thrive. I also don't want it to be possible for parents to misuse the system to get things paid for because they think that if others are getting something extra, they should too.The system is fundamentally broken and I don't know how we fix it.

Fairly easy in the sense the obstacles are no different to the ones experienced by the private sector firms except, as you say, the short termism/political will of the public sector.

I don’t think it’s this black and white though. Will this boy really go on to keep his nose clean, work, be a decent enough citizen? It seems unlikely. It’s an enormous amount of money to gamble with the odds not good enough.

I also hate the way this makes me feel but we can’t exist as a very expensive life support system for people with ‘issues’ where all we can do is pay through the nose to ‘manage’ them.

The cost of doing nothing however is likely to be much higher. If a young person like this drifts into seriouscrime, or drugs, or both, the cost to the taxpayer will be so much worse.

Ideally we wouldn't be in as bad a situation, but austerity killed services that were shown to have a protective effect.

So what do you suggest the state should provide for this youngster? The cost needs to be offset against future anti social behaviour, prison cost, emotional costs of potential serious assault/murders etc.

100% agree. I worked with severely impaired young people for many years and have no issue at all supporting those who really need it, but the pp who implied I was somehow wrong for pointing out there are finite resources which need to reach those that need it most in a fair way rather than those who shout loudly having it provided by often dubious companies with conflicting interests make me feel that I am somehow the one in the wrong, when actually I would be willing to bet I have cared for the most vulnerable in society and gone over and above more than many…

I think the key thing is profit. I doubt very much that £17k a week is being spent on the provision. So it’s fleecing kids and tax payers.

Children’s home’s standard care staff earn better wages than a band 5 NHS worker.

The results are not guaranteed. I would hazard a guess he’s still likely to end up a criminal or on benefits.

So is your solution to just shrug and not even try? Because the cost of that, if you multiply it by the number of children and young people growing up with deprivation, drugs, domestic violence and the like is really going to impact the tax payer. Think of the cost of building many many more prisons, staffing them, pension costs for staff, maintenance costs - and then the cost of each prisoner per year, maybe for life.

Trying interventions looks like the better deal to me. That isn't to say that we shouldn't be doing that more sensibly - by bringing services back to the state, cutting out the profiteers, investing in economies of scale, investing in much earlier intervention because that saves money in the long run. Hear the public scream at the very idea...

Things like horse riding, trampolining (mostly delivered as rebound therapy), etc. wouldn’t be included in EHCPs unless they were legally reasonably required. LAs wouldn’t include such special educational provision in F of EHCPs if it wasn’t legally required and needs could be met in a cheaper way. Neither would SENDIST Order it be included if it wasn’t legally required - and if they did err, LAs would be quick to challenge the decision. Such provision is also often cheaper than funding direct provision such as physio, OT, CBT, etc. Parents don’t get provision just because they ask for it and they aren’t entitled to the best possible education, the provision has to be legally reasonably required.

Children who attend school receive art lessons. Legally, those unable to attend school are entitled to an education of the equivalent breadth as those in mainstream as far as their needs allow, which is why art lessons can be included. For some, it can also support OT needs removing or reducing the need for other direct OT provision which would be more costly.

The fact some private companies are making significant profit doesn’t mean the individual children and young people don’t require the funding. The answer isn’t to remove that provision which is shortsighted and in many cases would lead to higher costs long term. The answer is moving towards more state provision - both in the education and care sectors.

Local authorities don’t have to use outside providers do they? They could develop centres that provide these services in house if they wanted and thought they could do it for less money. So if there really is profiteering going on there’s an obvious and fairly easy solution. But local authorities don’t seem to do that. I wonder why?

I explained earlier in the thread my experience @RawBloomers (see quote above).
Another service in crisis.

That’s an awful assumption. He’s still a human that deserves education and compassion.

I worked as a social worker around the time LA provision was abolished in favour of private provision, with all the complex systems of assessment for payment for that provision that came in its wake.
From my point of view the former system was vastly better. The training and support of staff was better, and was controlled and monitored. Provision ran under clear known rules.
If I was concerned about an individual I could walk down the corridor and talk to the person overseeing their care and a solution wpuld be found in house. After the change I had to approach a private organisation over which I had no control and no links and which ran on different rules.
It became a mess.
And an expensive mess.