Cheshire County Council is spending £9m a year on services for children at risk of abuse or neglect.

This is one of the findings of a survey carried out by its social services department as part of a Children In Need Census.

An analysis of £18m worth of social services for young people revealed that half was spent on 314 children in care and supporting a further 573 youngsters at home.

The census, which was pioneered in Cheshire, aimed to determine spending patterns for youngsters in care or at risk, and has now been adopted by the Government.

The incidence of domestic violence, mental illness, young carers, alcohol and drug abuse were all catalogued together with the needs of the children.

In one designated week researchers costed every hitherto unknown financial aspect of providing services for children and produced some remarkable findings.

County Councillor Sue Proctor, executive member for social services said: "The survey has covered almost every detail involving these children, the services they need and the cost of those services.

"It has provided a powerful new planning and budgeting tool and ensures that Cheshire remains at the forefront of information management in children's services."

During the seven days, Cheshire had 4,133 open child care cases on its books. It spent about £384,500 on 2,316 of them, with 164 of those youngsters using 41 per cent of the resources - £158,434 - an average of £966 each.

Nine children cost more £2,000 each a week. Eight of them were disabled with costs ranging from £3,189 to £1,829 a week.

Nearly half of all expenditure - 45 per cent - involved children receiving services as a result of abuse and neglect- about £173,000 a week or £9m annually.

And more than half - 53 per cent - of the £18m budget is to support children in care.

The report revealed that a typical very needy child or young person could involve five different workers and daily use of a family centre, plus fostering, child protection and "quality standard" costs.

It was calculated that every week social services staff spent around 6,183 hours on work for needy youngsters- a total of 300,000-plus hours every year.

A parallel survey also found that more than a third of the adults caring for Cheshire's children in need have major problems that impaired their abililty to parent their children adequately.

Of a sample of 351 children it was found that 23 per cent were effected by major conflicts in the family - including domestic violence and 14 per cent lived with an adult with serious alcohol or drug abuse problems.

A further 12 per cent had parents or carers are described as "vulnerable" due to mental illness, substance abuse or criminal behaviour.

"What we have is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the many facets of distress in the families of children in need," says report joint author, Robin Forrester, policy review manager.

Co-author, projects officer Craig Steeland added: "The results of this work will allow improved decisions to make the cake go further. It will encourage the allocation of funds to needy people who face real and difficult problems in their lives."