Children in Care

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children have been (a) in care and (b) taken into care in each year since 1990-91; if he will place in the Library a breakdown of the reasons why children went into care; and if he will make a statement. (150155)

The number of children who were looked after during the years ending 31 March 1991 to 2006 is shown in table 1.

The number of children who were taken into care during the years ending 31 March 2002 to 2006 is shown in table 2.

“Children taken into care” are children who started to be looked after under the following legal statuses: interim or full care orders, and police protection or emergency protection or child assessment orders. They exclude children freed for adoption or for whom a placement order was granted, they exclude children under voluntary accommodation and they also exclude children under youth justice legal statuses.

The remaining information requested can be provided only at a disproportionate cost.

*Table 1: All children*¹ *looked after at 31 March, 1991-2006*^1,2, England
	Number
1991³	59,800
1992³	55,500
1993³	51,200
1994³	49,500
1995³	49,900
1996³	50,800
1997³	51,400
1998⁴	53,300
1999⁴	55,500
2000⁴	58,100
2001⁴	58,900
2002⁴	59,700
2003⁴	60,800
2004³	61,200
2005³	60,900
2006³	60,300
¹ Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short term placements. ² Historical data may differ from older publications. In previous years' publications, this table used data from CLA100. To be consistent with tables elsewhere, data in this publication are now taken from the SSDA903 throughout, and the breakdowns may therefore differ slightly from figures in previous publications. ³ Figures are taken from the SSDA903 return which in 1990-91 to 1996-97, 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 covered all looked after children. ⁴ Figures are taken from the SSDA903 one-third sample survey.

*Table 2: Looked after children taken into care during the years ending 31 March 2002 to 2006*^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}*, England*
Number
	2002³	2003³	2004²	2005²	2006²
England	7,400	8,100	7,500	7,700	7,600
¹ Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short term placements. ² Figures are taken from the SSDA903 return which in 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 covered all looked after children. ³ Figures are taken from the SSDA903 one-third sample survey. ⁴ Only the first occasion on which a child was taken into care in the year has been counted. ⁵ “Children taken into care” are children who started to be looked after under the following legal statuses: interim or full care orders, and police protection or emergency protection or child assessment orders. They exclude children freed for adoption or for whom a placement order was granted, they exclude children under voluntary accommodation and they also exclude children under youth justice legal statuses. ⁶ Historical figures may differ from older publications. This is mainly due to the implementation of amendments sent by some local authorities after the publication date of previous materials. ⁷ To maintain the confidentiality of each individual child, data at national level are rounded to the nearest 100 if they exceed 1,000 or to the nearest 10 otherwise.

Volume 463: debated on Tuesday 24 July 2007