Council accommodation around £24,000 a week for children linked to stabbing

Council bosses are paying around £24,000 a week to house three young people in "secure accommodation" after a stabbing in Cambridge.

Cambridgeshire County Council's audits and accounts committee heard on Monday (July 29) that the authority is paying around £8,000 per young person per week following an incident "at the end of May".

Service director for children and safeguarding, Lou Williams, told the meeting: "We have had a very serious and essentially rare and quite unpredictable scenario in Cambridge city at the end of May where a young person was stabbed by another young person.

"His view was that he didn't want to say to anyone who had [stabbed him]. He just wanted to get well and sort it out himself.

"So the consequence of that was that we had to start thinking about managing that process and so we have ended up with some very high cost placements as a result, because in that scenario you're talking secure accommodation effectively which comes in at around £8,000 per child per week."

He told the meeting there were three young people in the high-cost accommodation "as a direct result of the incident".

He said after the meeting the situation could last for around six months.

He said: "In extreme circumstances the council has to take action to protect the well-being of very vulnerable young people.

"The council uses this type of accommodation very rarely and incidents of that type are always very rare.

"Ultimately we have a safeguarding concern and we have to act appropriately."

The money will come from the Looked After Children Placements budget, which a council report to the children and young people committee on July 9 said is "forecasting a year end overspend of £350k" due to "recent activity in relation to gang related crime".