A CAMPAIGN to recruit new foster carers and adopters attracted 60 new enquiries in a deprived town that has the highest rate of children in care than anywhere else in the North-East.

Latest figures show that Middlesbrough has 363 ‘looked after' children and another 207 are subject to a child protection plan, of whom 60 per cent have suffered serious neglect.

The high number of drug users and low number accessing treatment as well as well as the high number of offenders returning to the community were among the reasons given for the high number of children in care.

A draft interim report presented by the council’s children and learning scrutiny panel revealed that in 2010 Middlesbrough proportionately had the highest number of ex-convicts of any authority as a proportion of the population.

Mayor of Middlesbrough, Ray Mallon, has forecast that three-quarters of the town’s annual budget will be spent on caring for looked-after children and a growing elderly population with dementia by 2019/2020.

About 30 children have been adopted since April 1 last year and a television advertising campaign was launched for the first time which generated 60 potentially new carers.

Sibling groups, boys over five and children from ethnic minorities are hardest to place with babies between eight and 18 months proving most popular the meeting heard which started with a minute’s silence for the panel’s vice chairman, Councillor Maelor Williams who died recently.

Scrutiny panel chairwoman, Councillor Jeanette Walker, said: “The rates are worrying but we are addressing the issues, not ignoring them. We do not take children in for the sake of it, we take the in because we have to."