Children's services: Herefordshire Council's extra £22m spend

A council has agreed to spend almost £22m to bring its troubled children's services up to standard.

Herefordshire Council was ordered to improve its services following a High Court order last year which found it "utterly failed" three foster children.

Half of the money is set to be spent in this financial year, cabinet agreed unanimously on Thursday.

The £22m is in addition to £41.3m allocated to the department in the council's 2022/23 budget.

A further £4.5m will be added to that budget, with the £11.5m earmarked for this year to come from the council's financial resilience reserve.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the money will be spent on hiring 82 full-time staff.

"A big issue has been the number of cases dealt with by each social worker, mentioned over and over by Ofsted, which we need to reduce significantly," council leader David Hitchiner said.

The government watchdog last reviewed the council's services in August and found significant changes had been made but the authority had achieved "limited progress" in improving the quality of social work.

The council's director of children's services, Darryl Freeman, said there had been "a significant rise in demand" during the Covid pandemic, adding: "We need a higher level of capacity to respond to this.

"We want our workforce to be increasingly permanent - it's better for children and families and less expensive. But recruitment is a challenge nationally."

Councillor Diana Toynbee, cabinet member for children's services, said the funding was "a huge ask" and that the local authority "needs to show results and value for money".

Andrew Lovegrove, the council's director of resources, confirmed the spending was "affordable and doesn't put the council into jeopardy".

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