The number of child cruelty offences have doubled in the past five years, with nearly 30,000 cases recorded by police forces in the past 12 months, new analysis shows.
It comes as local councils struggle with rising costs of delivering services to vulnerable children. More than 655,000 child in need assessments were completed by children's social care last year, and England's largest councils reported that they are overspending their budgets by over 600m to cope.
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