COURT delays and an increasing number of young people being arrested for serious offences have reportedly led to Essex County Council overspending its budget by almost £1 million.

The county council reported a £900,000 overspend on the costs to keep people in custody while they await trial, known as being on remand, between July an September last year.

The council report says this reflects a need for significantly more remand beds due to court delays, and that there have been more young people on remand for more serious offences requiring more secure, higher-cost accommodation.

Labour group leader Councillor Ivan Henderson said: "We shouldn't just be looking at this and saying we'll keep paying it. We need to found out and look at what we can do to bring in interventions to actually support these young people.

"It might be that we increase our youth budget and youth service to actually deal with it at an earlier stage before young people end up in this situation."

County council leader Kevin Bentley said: "We have a lot of dedicated staff and in this particular world, this particular subject is an increasing demand we have to deal with, and they deal with it brilliantly within the budget constraints we have.

"But what is causing it is perhaps behind the question and we need to have that discussion and that has to be out there. It is a society issue as far as I'm concerned, and it's not just Essex, I imagine, either."

The overspend contributed to a £17.3 million shortfall in the Children and Families budget – the majority of which came from pressure on the placement of children into care.

The overspends are slightly offset by an underspend of £3 million on support to separated migrant children, where the numbers in care are lower than was budgeted for.