Children's services in Richmond upon Thames are facing a projected overspend of £1.456 million for the current financial year, with the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) forecast to overspend by £10.677 million. The total for Education & Children Services is projected to be £74.103 million against a budget of £61.970 million, resulting in an overall projected overspend of £12.133 million.
The Education and Children's Services Committee heard on Thursday, 10 September 2026, that the Children Looked After placement budget alone is projected to overspend by £1.810 million. This pressure is largely attributed to the escalating weekly costs associated with high-cost children's home placements, with eight such placements currently costing over £10,000 per week.
The significant increase in the cost of these high-dependency placements is driven by higher weekly fees for high-cost children's homes. This is often due to the level of need
of a complex young person,
where providers may require two people with that young person at any one time for us to kind of guarantee that we can keep them safe.
This is also influenced by the market and the amount of risk I guess that those providers of children's homes are willing to take.
The average cost for a children's home placement currently stands at £5,799 per week. Despite a reduction in the overall number of children in care compared to the previous year, the increased cost per placement is the main factor contributing to the financial strain. At the end of June 2026, Richmond upon Thames was supporting 115 children looked after, a reduction from 125 in June 2025. The previous year, 2025-2026, saw 171 children looked after by Richmond.
In response to these financial challenges, the Education and Children's Services Committee is implementing several actions. To mitigate the overspend in the Children Looked After (CLA) placement budget, the leadership team is regularly reviewing all high-cost placements to ensure children step down to more affordable options as soon as they are ready and when suitable placements become available. The brokerage team is also proactively sourcing new placements, building relationships with providers, and negotiating weekly fees.
Conversely, the Leaving Care placement budget is forecast to underspend by £0.470 million, as fewer young people are currently being supported than initially budgeted. The team continues to work hard to identify affordable placement options and focuses on initiatives to support care leavers in preparing for independence, including teaching life skills and discussing housing, employment, and education options. A rent deposit scheme is also being discussed for care leavers ready for independence but unable to access local authority housing.
The Home to School Transport Service is also addressing a projected overspend of £0.382 million. The service is focusing on route planning to ensure efficiency and is exploring merged routes with neighbouring boroughs. Additionally, there is a focus on independent travel training and trialling pick-up points for families.
While there are efforts to identify local, more affordable placement options and proactive commissioning, the meeting information does not detail explicit plans for increasing the number of in-house children's home placements. However, Achieving for Children has submitted an application to the Department for Education to become a fostering hub, which would bring together resources for recruitment, retention, and approval, and enable the expansion of the Mockingbird programme for foster carers.
The projected deficit for 2026/27 is £11 million, and the sustainability of high needs education services remains a significant risk to the local authority. The DSG funding shortfall could impact funding available for non-education services in future years. Further details on the committee's discussions can be found in the Public reports pack for the Education and Children's Services Committee meeting on Thursday, 10 September 2026.
