Questions are being asked about why there has been an increase in child care cases being re-referred to social services.

While the numbers of children in the care of the local authority or the subject of a child protection plans has fallen – more than a quarter are coming back into the system within a year.

The figures show children coming under the care of social services down by almost 4 per cent.

But re-referrals have increased with those in care coming to the attention of social services once again within a year of their cases being closed up 1 per cent to 29% between Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 and the percentage of children who become the subject of a plan for a second or subsequent time increasing from 19.6 per cent to 24.7 per cent over the same three month period.

“We would expect the children in need rate to be the one thing to go down given the downward trend elsewhere,” said senior assurance officer John Alexander at Thursday’s county safeguarding committee.

Interim director for social services Nick Jarman says there has been a focus on preventing children coming into care in the first place with early intervention work successfully reducing the overall figures.

Cllr Toni Coombs welcomed the drop in the numbers of children in care but said that behind the statistics was an increase in those who needed very expensive, specialist care, usually offered out of county.

The committee agreed to ask for further information about the apparent contradiction in the figures for their next meeting.

Assistant social services director Claire Shiels said all cases were kept under review, with additional attention to those costing more than average. She said the typical complex case generally involved teenagers “but we now have a little bubble of younger ones who’ve experienced real trauma and have complex family needs.”

She said most were short-term, concentrated placements.