Our budget was already under pressure for several reasons.
We have a statutory duty to provide specialist school places for children with special educational needs or disability (SEND) and to provide transport to get to school and back if they meet certain criteria. We are seeing an increase in children with SEND, putting increasing pressure on our budgets.
The average school transport cost per SEND pupil is £9,000 a year. We currently transport 1,218 SEND pupils, costing just over £12m a year. It also costs just over £8m a year to transport around 5,000 eligible mainstream children.
We’ve seen a 124 per cent increase in the costs of school transport since 2020/21, with the cost now standing at £20m compared to £9m four years ago.
We forecast to take account of inflation; however, this has remained higher for longer than expected. We budgeted for £7.7m but is costing an additional c£2m.
We have invested in new facilities for all our communities. These capital projects are funded by selling council assets (such as land we own) and borrowing. The cost of borrowing has increased - in effect, our mortgage has gone up - as it will for many of you which means we have bigger bills. We are paying c£3m more interest than planned.
Price volatility and increased demand in waste services is resulting in c£1m additional cost.
We are seeing an increasing need for temporary accommodation for people who are homeless which is an extra £700,000 per year.
On top of this, in the last 12 months, we’ve seen:
- a big, unexpected increase in demand for adult social care, resulting in a 35 per cent increase in costs
- a 70 per cent increase in costs of residential care for children in our care
These services make the biggest difference to vulnerable people's lives, and they are services we have to provide by law. Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of our service (revenue) budget is already spent on adult social care and children’s services.
Adult social care
We have a legal responsibility to meet social care needs for anybody who is eligible for care. Although some people pay for their own care, the council picks up the cost for many people who do not have the funds to pay for their own care.
Adult social care has been under pressure for several years. We have an aging population – we are living longer, and this means more people need adult social care for longer. We have managed this demand by investing heavily in preventative services to enable more people to stay in their own homes and remain independent for as long as possible before needing residential and nursing care.
Residential and nursing care is the most expensive form of care, and that’s where we’ve seen a big rise.
We have been forecasting increasing demand for residential care but this year the increase in demand has been much greater than expected.
This is particularly acute in residential care for older people, but we’ve also seen greater than expected increases in the need for mental health and learning disabilities-supported living.
This chart shows the increase in demand and costs for residential and nursing care for older people.
Demand has increased by 101 people (19 per cent) over the last 12 months. In the two years previous, we had an average of 16 new older people. This increase is beyond any reasonable forecast based on previous trend data.
The reasons for the increasing demand are varied. One reason is that people who previously would have paid for their care are now finding their finances depleted and seeking council support.
It’s not just an increase in demand; the cost of care is increasing too. Increases in inflation, national living wage and energy costs all have an impact on the cost of care. Plus, because we are living longer, more people have more complex care needs which costs more.
The chart above shows the average cost has increased by 13 per cent in the last 12 months.
It costs around £1,000 a week, for an older person to be in residential and nursing care and we are forecasting an additional 100 people will need residential care next year based on what we’ve seen happen this year. This means we need an additional c£5m to meet this demand.
This chart shows the increase in demand and costs for learning disabilities supported living.
Demand has increased by 25 people (13 per cent) over the last 12 months. In the previous two years, we had an average of 20 new people. Although the increase in demand is not as stark as older people, the cost of learning disability supported living is much higher and has increased by 3 per cent.
It costs around £1,700 a week, or £88,000 a year for learning disabilities supported living. An extra 25 people equates to an additional c£2m a year.
This chart shows the increase in demand and costs for mental health supported living.
Demand has increased by 23 people (37 per cent) over the last 12 months, and unit cost has increased by 3 per cent. In the previous two years, we had an average of 16 new people.
It costs c£932 a week, or £48,000 a year for mental health supported living. An extra 23 people equates to an additional c£1m a year.
Rising costs for children’s residential care
Sometimes children cannot stay in their family home and need to be placed into our care, this can be foster care but some children and young people with complex needs need residential care.
The rate of children in care in Central Bedfordshire is in line with our population and below the national average. This reflects the good work we do to help families early, before they reach crisis point and our graduated response to support in-home packages to provide the best outcomes for children and families and minimise costs.
Although we don’t have large numbers of children needing residential care, the cost of residential care is high, and due to the increased complexity of the care needs of children, the average cost has increased by over £2,000 a week in the last 12 months.
We forecast this year that 26 children would need residential care costing on average £4,000 a week. Next year we forecast 34 children will need residential care and estimates suggest the average cost will be over £6,000 a week.
The increase in costs is reflective of the national shortage of residential care and it is also because the children we need to provide residential care for have more complex needs.
The average cost next year is £6,355 a week but this is just an average. The cost can vary depending on the needs of the child. Our highest-cost residential care placement is currently £15,000 a week because the individual requires two people with them and specialist individual accommodation.
An additional eight children in residential care next year and the increased costs equates to an additional £4m next year.
You can also read about all of the pressures in detail (LINK) in the draft budget papers on this website.
If we take all the increased costs into account, our costs are forecast to be £32m more than our income next year. Our services are largely funded by Council Tax, and we cannot increase Council Tax by more than 5 per cent. We have to make changes to services so we can continue to provide the services we are required to provide by law.