The council has agreed to voluntary redundancies for 13 staff out of 60 who applied and is set to delete eight mostly unfilled posts. However, at the same time, it will recruit for seven new posts.
Four of these will be for a dedicated “brokerage team” to try to negotiate better terms for the council as the cost of children’s care placements soar.
The council leader says this new team will help the council get “better value for the tax payer” while ensuring youngsters get the support they need.
Daniel Cowan, leader of the council, said: “At the end of November our children’s services projected overspend was £6.3million. If we didn’t have an overspend in children’s services, we’d be reporting a £1.6 million underspend.
“That tells you the demand pressure for placements in children’s services is what’s really pushing hard on our budgets at the moment. That’s the thing we’re looking to control.
“We’ve put an additional £4.75million into the children’s services budget. Some of it is being done by the new brokerage team.”
The council is carrying out a review of its spending on children’s services. It hopes to open its own residential home and is set to refurbish some accommodation for others to come in and and provide care in a bid to cut costs.
Mr Cowan added: “At the moment £352,000 is the average cost of a children’s placement. If we got that down to £300,000 we wouldn’t have an overspend.”