North Northamptonshire Council announces £20m children's home investment proposals

NNC says that the investment will ensure ‘self-sufficiency’ of care provision in North Northants, improve outcomes for children and their families and support the delivery of significant savings.

If it is given the go-ahead, relevant officers and senior councillors will have permission to draw from the pot of money set aside to purchase land and properties to develop as children’s homes.

It adds that the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust’s (NCT) £7.5m savings programme over the next three years is ‘critically dependent’ on the development of its own stock of children’s homes.

The local authority has noted that the current level of provision in Northamptonshire means that children ‘are not always receiving the most appropriate services locally’.

According to the council, 11 children and young people in North Northants are currently being supported in unregistered, illegal children’s homes because of a lack of sufficiency.

A breakdown of the spending shows that £5.2 million will be allocated to spending on NCT office accommodation.

This includes leasing offices in Sheep Street, Wellingborough, for a local NCT hub, fitting out the William Knibb Centre in Kettering to relocate staff there from other sites and redeveloping the Northamptonshire Youth Offending Service offices in London Road, Kettering.

The remaining £15.1m will go towards a programme of children’s homes, supported accommodation and general units.

The exact programme and individual accommodation sites will be subject to the approval of future business cases.

The council has laid out its intention to use the funding to buy and refurbish four new children’s homes offering a total of 12 care placements, five supported accommodation properties for 25 care leavers and 16 general housing units for care leavers. The scheme could create an estimated £2.25m in savings each year, according to the report.

Its counterpart West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) is also developing a capital programme for children’s homes and supported accommodation for care leavers alongside the NCT.

This scheme comes as the NCT is currently contributing to a predicted £9.5m overspend for NNC in the 2024/25 financial year. The number one pressure is the Children’s Trust, costing the council a forecast £3.9m. The biggest overspend within the service stems from the volatile placement costs for children in care.

NNC’s executive committee will review the spending plans on Thursday (November 14).

If recommended, the plans will later be passed on to full council for approval.