COUNCIL chiefs have been urged to launch fresh efforts to reduce Worcestershire's reliance on private foster companies for vulnerable children.

A new report has been published revealing how the costs of using expensive outside care for youngsters can spiral as high as £200,000 a year.

As the Worcester News exclusively revealed earlier this year, Worcestershire County Council has handed private firms around £30 million since 2013 due to a shortage of in-house foster carers.

While an in-house placement costs around £25,000 a year, going to a private fostering company costs about £42,000.

The Conservative leadership has now published a new report revealing how the costs of external fostering placements could rise to around £200,000 "if a child needs an external residential placement for a whole year".

County Hall's Labour group has called the figures "ridiculous", with its group leader Councillor Peter McDonald challenging the leadership on it.

"We have this ridiculous figure of 47 per cent of children being fostered into the private sector which costs us an extra £20,000 per child," he said.

Speaking during a full council meeting, he asked why the leadership was unable to reduce it "in a meaningful way".

But Councillor Marc Bayliss, the cabinet member for children and families, said he was trying to "personalise the issue" and pointed to the data getting steadily better.

In December last year the council had 420 children on its books living with foster carers, with 251 of them placed via outside agencies, around 60 per cent, compared to the current rate of 47 per cent.

"The figure was over 60 per cent, so we have brought it down," said Councillor Bayliss.

He told the chamber his predecessors in the job have delivered "great success in bringing it down".

The report said bosses at County Hall have "developed a number of internal alternatives" over the last year to reduce their reliance on "expensive" private foster companies.

A council-recruited foster carer typically gets paid around £430 per week, per child but turning to private agencies is costing the public purse an average of £800, with the excess cash propping up each firm's overheads and profits.

The £800 charge is a fairly standardised rate levied by fostering agencies across the country.

The county council has a long list of firms it deals with, ranked by quality and cost, with the industry fiercely competitive.