Councils say they are ‘held to ransom’ by private providers of children’s care

The Local Government Association says the market for children’s social care placements is ‘broken’. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Councils have claimed they are being “held to ransom” by private care providers, as it emerged the taxpayer has been paying as much as £63,000 a week for single children’s social care placements.

The extraordinary bill – equivalent to £3.3m a year for one placement – came in new figures from local authorities in England released on Wednesday that showed the number of placements for the care of vulnerable children costing over £10,000 a week has risen to more than 1,500 – equivalent to at least £780m a year. There were only 120 such placements five years ago.