As the headlines continue to tell us, this is a time of austerity and shrinking budgets in local government. Children's services have faced challenging savings targets and very difficult decisions over several years. However, the counterintuitive truth is that expenditure on children's social care is actually increasing nationally (Figure 1).

In 2015/16, 73% of all councils overspent against their children's social care services budget (Figure 2). As they approach year end for 2016/17, it seems this year will be no different.