Sandwell's looked after children's services are facing a multi-million pound overspend for the third year running.
The Sandwell Children's Trust, which runs the department for the authority, has predicted a £3.6 million deficit by March next year.
The forecast comes after councillors were warned last week that the service was placed on a 'red' risk rating by officers, who said that without extra money there could be a 'detrimental impact on the financial resilience of the trust'.
Now, members of the borough’s Children's Services and Education Scrutiny Board will be told this evening (Monday) that in October the chair of the trust wrote to the government saying the services was again facing an overspend.
The Rt Hon Jacqui Smith, wrote to the Department of Education in October stating: “The board has reviewed the current year’s financial performance and will be reporting to Sandwell Council a forecast overspend of £3.6m.”
The overspend is the third in three years - in August a Freedom of Information request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed that in 2017-18 the council budgeted £23.52 million for the service but spent £32.05 million. In 2016-17 its budget was £23.63 million while the actual spend was £25.36 million.
Steve Eling, the leader of Sandwell Council, has said the overspend will not affect other services because the trust can carry deficits over.
He said: “The council and Sandwell Children’s Trust worked together to agree a budget over which the trust has operational independence, including managing within the agreed budget.
“It is not a matter of the council having to cut other services in order to fund this overspend.
"The financial mechanism in the contract means that the trust has responsibility to balance its budget – either an overspend or underspend - over a number of years."
“The financial pressures in Children’s Social Care are a national issue and need to be resolved by central government.
"This pressure has been building for many years and, so far, the government has done nothing to address it.
"The Chancellor finally announced in the recent budget that the government intends to make available additional funding to start to tackle this issue and we are looking forward to seeing more detail about how this will work.”
