NEGLECT accounts for 60 per cent of ‘looked after’ children in Middlesbrough - where there are more young people in care and protected from risk of harm than anywhere else in the North-East.

Siblings and youngsters from certain ethnic minorities are the hardest children to find new families for while babies aged eight to 18 months are easiest to place.

Thirty children have been adopted since April 1 last year said Neil Pocklington, assistant director of safeguarding and children’s care at Middlesbrough Council, which is trying to attract more foster carers and adoptive parents to help meet spiralling costs.

As of today there are 369 looked after children (LAC) in the town and another 207 subject to child protection plans, which has fallen dramatically from 335 in 2010.

In 2013/14 Middlesbrough’s LAC rate was 17 per cent above average for its group of similar authorities and 87 per cent above the national average.

Mr Pocklington told the council’s children and learning scrutiny panel that its figures may be inflated by including groups of children that other local authorities did not.

Studies into the issue have concluded that poverty and social deprivation contributed to its high numbers which cost the council £1m for every 16 youngsters taken into care.

“Sixty per cent of the children in child protection and who are looked after have significant neglect,” said Mr Pocklington, who explained that wherever possible they were found new homes with its own adopters and foster carers within the Tees Valley which saved money.

Mayor of Middlesbrough, Ray Mallon, has forecast that a massive three-quarters of the town’s dwindling annual budget will be spent on caring for looked-after children and a growing elderly population with dementia by 2019/2020.

“If we cannot reduce the numbers as quickly as we want we have to look at reducing costs,” Mr Pocklington said. “When we make placements we go as local as possible but if we are looking for people to take teenagers, family groups or children with a range of disabilities we might have to look outside the borough for people with the right skill set.”

A 13-page document discussed at the meeting said that there had been a sharp increase in the numbers of LAC across the country following the shocking case of Peter Connelly, known as ‘Baby P’, a 17-month-old toddler who died in London after suffering more than fifty injuries in 2009.

Scrutiny panel chairwoman, Jeanette Walker, added: “The checks that have been put in place are being adhered to so we do not have any high profile cases in Middlesbrough.”