Children's services are “at breaking point” and need more than £3billion of extra cash, MPs warn.
The cross-party Local Government Committee calls for the funding injection over the years to 2025.
In a report, it blames “constricted funding and ever increasing demand” for piling pressure on children’s services.
The number of children in care has surged from 59,400 to 75,420 between 2008 and 2018.
Highlighting a high turnover of staff as a sign of “a system that isn’t working well”, the study says: “Children pay the price as professional relationships break down. It has a cost for local authorities who resort to filling vacancies with agency.”
The committee wants Chancellor Philip Hammond to use this year’s Spending Review to pump in at least £3.1billion over the next six years.
Chairman Clive Betts said: “Over the last decade we have seen a steady increase in the number of children needing support, whilst at the same time funding has failed to keep up.
“It is clear that this approach cannot be sustained and the Government must make serious financial and systemic changes to support local authorities in helping vulnerable children.
“They must understand why demand is increasing and whether it can be reduced. They must ensure that the funding formula actually allows local authorities to meet the obligations for supporting children that the Government places on them.
Question-dodging Theresa May is the most evasive Tory PM on record
“We have reached a crisis point and action is needed now.”
The Local Government Association’s children and young people’s board chairwoman, Anntoinette Bramble, said: “Children’s services are at a tipping point as a result of increasingly high levels of demand for support and cuts in central government funding.
“The fact that nine in 10 councils overspent their budgets on children’s social care in 2017/18 indicates the huge financial pressures councils all over the country are under to support vulnerable children and young people.”
Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, said the “hard-hitting report highlights the risks of continuing to starve children’s services of the vital funds they need to protect our most vulnerable children”.
She added: “We cannot just continue to cross our fingers and hope that vulnerable children will be alright and this report must be a final wake-up call to the Government.
Government cancels no-deal Brexit ferry contracts costing taxpayer £50 million
“This year’s Spending Review is the moment to act. Ministers must accept that children’s services are in desperate need of funding to improve what they offer children, rather than just stand still or go backwards, and that some failing authorities need more help.”
