TAXPAYERS in Caerphilly borough will have to foot a weekly bill of up £60,000 to send 15 disturbed children for care in England.

It is going to lead to a £1million overspend by the social services department for the months to next April.

Caerphilly has to send the youngsters to England because it does not have its own facilities.

The council's social services scru-tiny committee has been told cuts could be made to services in a bid to reduce expenditure.

The warning comes despite the fact the social services budget was increased by £2,667,000 in February.

Councillor Judith Pritchard, Cabinet member for social services, said: "We have a lot of disturbed children within the borough who require expensive residential child care facilities in England because we haven't got the facilities in the borough.

"This is a national problem in Wales and hopefully the National Assembly can do something about it, because it costs the authority around £3,000 to £4,000 (a week) to send a child to England for therapeutic care."

A review of the placements has already identified potential savings of around £850,000. Councillor Pritchard said the authority had been able to reduce the projected overspend from £2.7 million to £1 million in the last few months because many children were coming back for "ordinary care" in the borough.

Further measures were being taken in terms of increasing efficiency within the department and the promotion of day-care services for elderly people to allow them to remain in their own homes.

Councillor Pritchard said she hoped the projected overspend could be brought down even further but stressed it would not be at the cost of weakening services. "Because the budget is £37 million for social services, an overspend of £1 million only represents three per cent of the total, which is not too bad.

"It is very difficult to budget to the exact amount when the total is so big." l An appeal has been made for foster parents who can contact the council's children's resources team on 02920 880090.