TOWN hall leaders have revealed they believe "no one will help" tackle the funding and social crisis enveloping councils as pressures on the services which protect children intensify.

According to analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA), severe funding shortages for social services for vulnerable youngsters have pushed nearly nine in 10 councils into the red.

In Oldham, bosses are trying to reverse the fortunes of their own children’s social care which has come under immense strain as the number of young people needing protection has spiralled.

But turning the ship is proving to be a costly and lengthy process, with more than three years of work unable to improve their "requires improvement" Ofsted rating.

This is in large part attributed to the rising demand for the service they have experienced during those years, which the council says has doubled since 2015.

Chiefs say changes to welfare policy, the impact of Universal Credit, homelessness and rising poverty have all contributed to more children having to be separated from their families and placed in the care of the local authority.

Cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Amanda Chadderton said the solution would be for the government to “adequately fund children’s social care as it should be”.

“One of the reasons why we have so many children in need and children in care in Oldham is because our poverty rates are too high,” she said.

“There will be a £20 billion funding gap for children’s services across the country next year.

“For every pound of that we had in 2010 we’ve lost 75p by the end of next year, these things have a direct consequence, so the way to solve it would be for the government to actually fund it the way it should be.

“We are a rich country and they choose not to fund it.”

The cash-strapped authority has now agreed to spend a further £12 million over the next three years to embed improvement into the service and increase social workers’ wages, a decision that local leaders say they have not taken lightly.

The extra funding comes on top of a huge amount of funding that has already been channelled into keeping the service afloat.

In the 2017/18 financial year, there was a £3.46 million overspend in the department.

And this year it rose again to £4.21 million, despite "significant investment" from the town hall.

According to the council, the principal reasons are due to the continued rise in the numbers of looked after children and the eye-watering cost out of borough placements.

Overspends have also been reported for the increasing number of kids with disabilities requesting personal budgets, and the amount of care leavers living in supported accommodation.

At the beginning of this year, figures collated by the LGALGA showed that of 152 councils, 133 were forced to spend more money than they had planned on children’s social care in 2017/18.

This amounted to a total overspend of £806 million.

Cllr Chadderton added: “That is now the world that we live in, in this austerity driven world, that it’s fine for children to live in poverty according to the government.

“So then it’s how do you respond to that. You can’t keep on employing staff, and we recognise that.

“You’ve got to employ staff to certain level so the service is adequately staffed, and you have enough social workers to have a reasonable level of caseloads.

“But we can’t forever, every three years be investing £12 million in children’s services and we recognise that so one thing you’ve got to do is try and stabilise the number of kids coming through the door.

“To be the third highest authority in the country year on year for our looked after children rates, that needs to change.”

Government statistics show that the number of looked after children continues to increase to the highest level since the 1980s, with more than 75,000 children in the care of councils in England.

The number of children in care in Oldham spiked at 584 in July, but this has now dipped to 529 as of January following the recruitment of more social workers.

“I do blame the government for a lot of it. And I’ve got two kids who live in Oldham and I hate this thing that we’re a poor town and everybody needs to leave,” Cllr Chadderton said.

“I don’t want my kids growing up and having to leave because they think Oldham doesn’t value young people.

“We’ve got to get on with it and do it ourselves, because no one’s going to come and help us.

“Nobody cares. Unless it’s talking about the European Union the government do not care about anything at the moment so we’ve got to plan for our young people and our children ourselves.”

Council leader Sean Fielding said that the pressure on social workers also fed into a culture within the services where the "voice of the child" was lost.

“Deprived towns have higher level of demand on children’s services and when cases are in such volume, when you’re dealing with so many young people it is easier to become detached I suppose,” he added.

“But really to stop the children coming through the door in the first place we need to stop battering families with benefit cuts and not building good quality housing and not creating secure, permanent employment for families.”

The government says it has invested millions in the autumn budget to address pressures in services helping society’s most vulnerable, including children’s social care.

A spokesperson from the Department for Education said: “We want every child to have the best start in life, with the opportunities and the stability to fulfil their potential, which is why we have made £200 billion available to councils up to 2020 for local services including those for children and young people.

“In the budget we announced an additional £410 million for adult and children’s social care services, in recognition of the pressures on local councils.

“We are also investing £84 million over the next five years to support up to 20 local authorities to help more children stay at home safely with their families.”