Five times as many children were taken into care last year compared to five years ago, statistics have revealed.
Following a freedom of information request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Figures showed hat 256 children were subject to either full care, interim care or emergency protection orders in Birmingham across 2017/18.
The year before this there were 250 cases of children being taken into care, wile 2015/16 saw 160 cases and 2014/15 saw 246 cases. In 2013/14, there was 48 cases.
These figures show a huge rise on the six-years previous to 2014/15 when Birmingham was placed into special measures as a council.
Action for Children is a UK children’s charity committed to helping vulnerable children and young people throughout the UK.
And, commenting on the figures, the charity’s director of policy and campaigns, Imran Hussain, called on the government to properly fund council children’s services to help prevent children being taken into care.
“Taking a child into care can be essential to keeping them safe but, from our everyday work at Action for Children, we know it’s far better for everyone to deal with problems like domestic abuse and neglect as early as possible, before family problems spiral out of control,” he said.
“Worryingly, things are getting worse, as over-stretched councils are forced to cut back on desperately-needed early help services – the very services they need to stop children falling into crisis.
“The reasons behind the rising numbers of children coming into care are complex, and Birmingham has its own specific challenges as the council which has the largest number of poor children living in its area.
“But we can’t ignore the fact that the funding gap for children’s services is expected to be a shocking £3.1bn by 2025. Unless the government gives more cash to councils in this year’s spending review to help them step in early to support vulnerable families, we could see more and more children reaching crisis point and going into care.”
