The Trust that run’s Bradford’s Children’s Services will save £40 million from its budget in the next two years.
Savings will be achieved partly by reducing the number of pricey agency staff working for the Trust.
The proposed savings were discussed at a meeting of Bradford Council’s Executive on Tuesday, when Councillors were told the Trust was “confident” the savings will be met.
The Trust was created in April 2023 to run the District’s Children’s Services after years of damning Ofsted reports into how Bradford Council was running the service.
When they took over it was a service facing spiralling costs, with pressure including the high cost of employing agency staff to fill important roles and the price of outside placements for young people in care coming in at over £300,000 per child per year.
A recent report into Bradford Council’s finances, heard at this week’s Executive, revealed that the Trust was planning to make major savings in the coming years.
The report says: “The Trust have submitted £20m of Budget Savings proposals for 2026-27 that broadly cover three areas of expenditure, staffing (£5.9m), premises (£1m) and placements (£13m), and it has further savings of £20m in 2027-28 and £20m 2028-29 targeted.
“Although the Trust is making significant progress on staffing related efficiencies and are forecast to underspend on staffing by £5.8m, and they are also forecast to underspend on premises by £0.6m in 2025-26 as buildings have been vacated, residential placement numbers have not been reducing as planned and overall placement budgets are forecast to overspend by £6.0m in 2025-26.
“The Trust has submitted the business cases for £20m of savings in 2026-27 and consequently consider that those savings are deliverable, however the continued overspend on placements and growth in residential care numbers demonstrates that savings delivery in 2026-27 will be challenging.”
At the meeting Councillor Sue Duffy, Executive for Children and Families, explained how the Trust was able to cut so much from its costs. She said: “We’re looking at bringing more children back from external placements. A number of children are also ageing out of their placements. We’re looking to increase Foster care. These are realistic figures and the Trust are very confident they’ll be able to achieve them.”
Councillor Geoff Winnard (Cons, Bingley Rural) said: “Are we confident (these cuts) can be delivered, and what effect will this have on services to children and the significant progress the Children’s and Families Trust has delivered?
“Also, why did it take moving children’s services to a Trust to be able to get these savings? Why can they do it but Bradford Council can’t do it?”
Bradford Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “A lot of these savings are down to things like using less agency staff, which isn’t a disadvantage, it’s an advantage. There are fewer people working short term and we’re recruiting more permanent staff.”
Referring to the question on why the trust could make savings the Council couldn’t, Cllr Hinchcliffe said: “The Children’s Trust can’t do this on their own. No organisation can operate as an island.”
