More than £90,000 a week is spent on Caerphilly council’s 20 most expensive looked-after children.
Caerphilly County Borough Council spends £90,631.71 a week looking after 20 children, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has found.
Of these, three of the placements cost more than £5,000 a week, with the most expensive costing £8,000.
The average weekly placement of a child in a foster home is £320, while with a fostering agency it’s £800, but residential placements in children’s homes or specialist facilities cost more.
On average, a weekly cost for a placement in a residential house is £2,800 and for a residential agency it’s £4,700.
This news comes after it was revealed in January 2018 that the council was spending £16,500 a week looking after a single child in London.
The arrangement, which has now ended, lasted for 232 days and cost the council nearly £550,000.
It was a court ordered bespoke placement for a single child, as an alternative to secure accommodation.
A spokesman for the council said: “The costs of a placement for a child are based on a number of dynamic factors linked to their individual assessed needs.
“This includes whether a child is able to share living space with other children or needs to be placed on their own, any challenging behaviours, the level of staffing required (i.e. one-to-one, two-to one etc) and any additional services needed by the child, such as therapy or special education.”