Accredited official statistics

Children looked after in England including adoption: 2012 to 2013

Information on looked-after children at both national and local authority levels for the financial year 2012 to 2013.

Applies to England

Documents

Main text: SFR36/2013

National tables: SFR36/2013

Local authority tables: SFR36/2013

Methodology document: SFR36/2013

Additional text: SFR36/2013

Publication schedule: SFR36/2013

Pre-release access list: SFR36/2013

Details

This statistical first release (SFR) provides information about looked-after children in England for the year ending 31 March 2013. The figures are based on data from the SSDA903 return collected from all local authorities. The release was updated in December 2013 to include a revised version of table B1, additional tables and underlying data.

Key points

There were 68,110 looked-after children at 31 March 2013, an increase of 2% compared to 31 March 2012 and an increase of 12% compared to 31 March 2009.

Of children looked after at 31 March 2013, 50,900 were cared for in a foster placement. This represents 75% of all children looked after at 31 March 2013.

There were 28,830 children who started to be looked after during the year ending 31 March 2013, an increase of 2% from 2012 and an increase of 12% from 2009.

There were 28,460 children who ceased to be looked after during the year ending 31 March 2013. This is an increase of 3% from 2012 and an increase of 14% from 2009.

There were 3,980 looked-after children adopted during the year ending 31 March 2013, an increase of 15% from 2012 and an increase of 20% from 2009.

Although the number of looked-after children adopted fell between both 2009 and 2010, and 2010 and 2011, the number of these adoptions has since increased and is now at its highest point since the start of the current data collection in 1992.

Looked-after children data user group

The looked-after children data user group seeks feedback on whether these statistics are meeting users’ requirements and consults on any future changes to this data collection and the timing and format of our outputs. If you would like to participate in this group, please register your interest by email.

Looked-after children statistics team

Email cla.stats@education.gov.uk

Telephone: Justin Ushie 01325 340817

Updates to this page

Published 26 September 2013
Last updated 11 December 2013 + show all updates
  1. This publication has been updated to include a revised version of table B1, additional tables and underlying data.

  2. First published.

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