THE number of children in care in England could reach almost 100,000 by 2025 — an increase of more than a third in a decade, new research shows. 

Research by the County Councils Network shows that the total will reach nearly 95,000 by the middle of the decade, up from 69,000 in 2015. 

Austerity cuts to council budgets and a lack of foster carers have driven the increase, the network’s chairman Cllr Tim Oliver was expected to tell his organisation’s annual conference today. 

“The reality is that there are too many vulnerable children being placed in expensive residential care settings and staying in the care system for longer,” he was due to say. 

Residential care is the most expensive form of care, with councils forking out on average £4,165 a week to keep a child in a children’s home. 

Funding pressures have also forced councils to make cuts to preventative services, reducing council workers’ ability to intervene early on to keep families together. 

The network’s figures showed some councils have reduced early intervention services by almost a fifth since 2015. 

As a result, Mr Oliver said councils are now facing a “vicious cycle.”

“Due to financial pressures local authorities have had to reduce preventative services to focus on intervention in crisis situations, alongside facing a lack of alternative solutions, such as foster care,” he explained. 

The network warns that without major reforms and investment, councils will spend £3.6 billion more a year keeping children in care in 2025 compared with 2015, amounting to 60 per cent of their children’s services budget. 

Cuts to children’s services saw budgets slashed by £2.2bn between 2010-11 and 2018-19, a fall of 23 per cent, according figures by Action for Children. 

In this year’s Autumn Budget, the government promised £500 million to children’s services and said it is providing local authorities with £4.8bn in new grant funding to help maintain vital front-line services, including children’s social care.

But the network said that extra funding to help reform the care system and to reinvest in targeted prevention and support for families in crisis — where a child is at risk of being taken into care — was also needed.