MORE than £90,000 a week is spent on Caerphilly council’s 20 most expensive looked-after children.

Caerphilly County Borough Council spends £90,631.71 a week looking after 20 children, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has found.

Of these, three of the placements cost more than £5,000 a week, with the most expensive costing £8,000.

MORE NEWS:

The average weekly placement of a child in a foster home is £320, while with a fostering agency it is £800, but residential placements in children’s homes or specialist facilities cost more.

On average, a weekly cost for a placement in a residential house is £2,800 and for a residential agency it is £4,700.

This news comes after it was revealed in January 2018 that the council was spending £16,500 a week looking after a single child in London.

The arrangement, which has now ended, lasted for 232 days and cost the council nearly £550,000.

This was a court-ordered bespoke placement for a single child, as an alternative to secure accommodation.

A spokesman for the council said: “The costs of a placement for a child are based on a number of dynamic factors linked to their individual assessed needs.

“This includes whether a child is able to share living space with other children or needs to be placed on their own, any challenging behaviours, the level of staffing required (i.e. one-to-one, two-to one etc) and any additional services needed by the child, such as therapy or special education.”