Growing numbers of vulnerable youngsters requiring care and a national shortage of suitable residential placements have led to Hull City Council’s children’s services overspending.

In Hull’s provisional financial outturn for 2017/18 detailing a £4.4m overspend in its children’s services department, to be discussed by senior councillors next week, officers write that hoped-for savings through demand management have ‘proven impractical to deliver in the light of increasing numbers of children requiring care’.