The Department for Education (DfE) has released statistics providing information on looked after children in England in 2021/2022. The figures reveal the number of children looked after by local authorities in England stood at 82,170 in 2022 compared to 80,780 in 2021, an increase of 2%.
This release provides information on children looked after (CLA) in England, including numbers of CLA adopted, care leavers and CLA who were missing. Data is taken from the annual SSDA903 data collection which is collected from local authorities in England. The Department has also published a summary of planned developments to the Stability Index following user feedback. This can be found in the file ‘Stability Index: planned developments following user feedback’ within ‘Explore Data and Files’, ‘All supporting files’ below.
The latest statistics relate to the year ending 31 March 2022. Each year local authorities can revise previous years’ data. The standard period for data in this release is for the year ending 31 March 2018 to the year ending 31 March 2022.
Note: Calculated rates per 10,000 children in this release are based upon ONS population estimates. Estimates by age and LA for mid-2021 were released by ONS in November 2022 and have been used for calculating rates for 2022. Rates for earlier years in this release are based upon population estimates published in 2021 and have not yet been revised following the 2021 census. As such, rates for 2022 are not comparable to rates for earlier years. Revised population estimates by age and LA years prior to 2021 are expected to be published by ONS in early 2023.
View the headline facts and figures here