£250,00 to keep one child in care?

[hc4361]

I've never thought about the costs of children in care, and don't take the Daily Mail at face value, but does anyone know if this report is correct?

http://www.dailymail....ose-targeted-sex.html

[cathfromsaron]

does that include legal costs too?

certainly not what foster carers are paid ...

[hc4361]

Is that per year?

[Mamyalynne]

Most online articles state around £2.500 per week, but not sure how official those amounts are.

[hc4361]

So that's £130k per year.

Gosh.

[jake-the-peg]

This is a bit like the "cost to keep someone in prison" figures.

You can get widely varying figures depending on what you include and what you exclude.

For example you look at the social workers and divide by the children

Well social workers have to be paid so why not add in the council administrative costs proportionally ?

There may be buildings so we add in the maintenance costs of those.

If you've a mind you can find all sorts of things to add in.

Chances are this probably came out of some sort of Freedom of information request.

If you want a scandle look at that

Freedom Of Information requests are mostly used by journalists - there were 121,000 of them in 2005 alone

The average cost to respond to each is about £300 and the cost is £10

That cost Local and National Governments £35 million

[Seadragon]

I read this in the paper yesterday. The £250k is for the care of one severely disturbed child and it's about how private companies are ripping the Council off. They are not interested in the care, there's is a financial concern as profits show.