Estimations that the 2022/23 spend on care for children and young people in residential care is approximately *£2.44billion. The growth since 2017-20 has been estimated at 20.5% which is higher than real-time growth at 15.3% for the UK.

In 2022/23 Essex spent a total of £153m on Children and Family Services. £65m of this was spent on placements for looked after children, which is 6% of the Councils total net spend in 2022/23.

Over the last 5 years the Council has seen a growth in demand in care for Children in Care by 10%. This is comparable to other Local Authorities in with UK. The graph below shows the growth per 10,000 for Essex Compared to other LAs, and shows that Essex continues to have a low proportion of CIC.

Source information from LaingBuisson

Whilst care numbers have increased relatively steadily, the cost of placements has increased at a much higher rate, with a 41% increase in placement spend in the last five years.