Councils say they are ‘held to ransom’ by private providers of children’s care

One child cost a local authority £63,000 a week and the number of placements has shot up to more than 1,500 from 120 five years ago

Councils claim they are being “held to ransom” by private care providers as it emerged the taxpayer has been paying as much as £63,000 a week for single children’s social care placements.

The extraordinary bill – equivalent to £3.3m a year for one placement – came in new figures from local authorities in England released on Wednesday that showed the number of placements for the care of vulnerable children costing over £10,000 a week has risen to over 1,500 – equivalent to at least £780m a year. There were only 120 such placements five years ago.