Private equity firms are making huge profits from children's homes while council services are being slashed to pay the soaring costs for youngsters' care, a councillor said.

Councillor Sarah Bennett-Wake (Macclesfield, Labour), was speaking after hearing one provider is charging Cheshire East Council £11,000 a week to care for one 17-year-old with complex needs.

Speaking on Monday (September 15), as the children and families committee was discussing the first financial review of 2025/26, councillor Bennett-Wake said: "There was a report out the other day from the National Audit Office, and it found seven out of 10 children's homes are owned by private equity firms and the costs have doubled over the last four years, and these companies are making a good 23 per cent profit out of this.

"So not only have we got inflation, we've got a higher number of children that need our support, people are making profit out of that."

When Poynton councillor Michael Beanland (Conservative), asked if this was relevant to the debate, councillor Bennett-Wake replied: "Our residents need to understand why other services are being cut back because of the overspend in children's [services], because of profit."

She continued: "They're playing politics with children's lives. We can't put profits before children.

"And I think that the general public needs to realise that we have a statutory and moral duty to look after our children, and money's being taken away from other services because some people are making huge amounts of money out of children's misery."

Committee chair Laura Crane (Sandbach, Labour), agreed.

"It doesn't sit quite right with me that profit is being made at the expense of our children's lives," she said.

She added: "We are beholden to private equity firms, in the main, when it comes to some of these contracts.

"That is something that should be out in the public domain."

Councillor Jos Saunders (Poynton, Conservative), said the issue of children's homes and profit had been going on for decades under governments of various political colours.

She added: "Most of the services we provide are statutory, we've got no choice."

Earlier in the meeting, councillor Sally Holland (Congleton, Conservative), had said that, during a frontline visit to a children's home, she was shocked to hear one provider was charging £11,000 a week for a teenager with complex needs.

Head of commissioning Martyn Baggaley said unfortunately that was not unusual and the most expensive he'd heard about was one local authority paying £52,000 a week for a child.

"So, this is the kind of crazy figures for some of our most complex children that we're now looking at," he told the committee.

He said the council was looking at using a tool which had been developed to challenge some of the costs in those packages.

Cash-strapped Cheshire East is forecasting a £3.1 million overspend this year, and that is in addition to the planned use of £25.3 million exceptional financial support.

The figure includes a projected overspend of £9 million within children and families, which is largely due to increased costs of placements and staffing.