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Special Guardianship Orders

Volume 487: debated on Monday 9 February 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) how many special guardianship orders have been made in each local authority area in each of the last five years; (251850)

(2) how many special guardianship arrangements have broken down in each of the last five years.

Information on the number of looked after children who ceased to be looked after as a result of a special guardianship order, in each local authority in each of the last three years ending 31 March 2006 to 2008,can be found in the following table.

Information on the number of special guardianship orders that have been made is only available for the last three years as they were first introduced on 30 December 2005. The figures for year ending 31 March 2006 only account for the last three months of the data collection year.

Information on the number of special guardianship arrangements that have broken down is not collected centrally by the Department.

Children who ceased to be looked after during the year ending 31 March by local authority, as a result of a special guardianship order being granted1,2,3,4,5, years ending 31 March 2006 to 2008—Coverage: England

Number

2006

2007

2008

England

70

750

1,100

North East

10

50

70

Darlington

0

Durham

5

15

Gateshead

0

0

0

Hartlepool

0

0

10

Middlesbrough

0

0

Newcastle upon Tyne

0

5

North Tyneside

0

Northumberland

0

5

15

Redcar and Cleveland

0

0

South Tyneside

5

Stockton-On-Tees

0

5

5

Sunderland

0

5

10

North West

10

130

220

Blackburn with Darwen

0

Blackpool

0

5

Bolton

15

Bury

5

10

Cheshire

0

10

5

Cumbria

10

10

Halton

0

0

5

Knowsley

0

10

Lancashire

10

25

Liverpool

0

15

25

Manchester

0

10

25

Oldham

0

10

Rochdale

Salford

0

Sefton

10

St Helens

0

10

Stockport

0

0

5

Tameside

0

Trafford

0

0

Warrington

0

Wigan

0

10

10

Wirral

0

15

25

Yorkshire and The Humber

10

50

80

Barnsley

0

0

10

Bradford

0

Calderdale

5

Doncaster

0

10

10

East Riding of Yorkshire

0

0

Kingston upon Hull, City of

0

0

Kirklees

Leeds

25

35

North East Lincolnshire

0

0

North Lincolnshire

0

North Yorkshire

0

Rotherham

0

0

Sheffield

0

0

5

Wakefield

0

York

East Midlands

30

60

Derby

0

10

Derbyshire

0

5

Leicester

0

Leicestershire

0

10

10

Lincolnshire

0

Northamptonshire

0

10

10

Nottingham

0

15

Nottinghamshire

0

Rutland

0

0

West Midlands

80

80

Birmingham

10

25

Coventry

0

10

Dudley

0

0

Herefordshire

0

5

Sandwell

0

20

Shropshire

0

0

0

Solihull

0

Staffordshire

0

20

20

Stoke-on-Trent

10

Telford and Wrekin

0

0

Walsall

0

0

Warwickshire

10

Wolverhampton

0

0

Worcestershire

0

0

East of England

50

90

Bedfordshire

0

5

15

Cambridgeshire

0

10

Essex

0

10

20

Hertfordshire

0

15

10

Luton

0

5

Norfolk

0

0

Peterborough

0

5

10

Southend-on-Sea

0

0

0

Suffolk

10

10

Thurrock

0

0

5

London

30

170

270

Inner London

10

100

180

Camden

5

10

20

City of London

0

0

0

Hackney

0

10

25

Hammersmith and Fulham

10

25

Haringey

0

5

20

Islington

0

10

5

Kensington and Chelsea

0

0

5

Lambeth

10

Lewisham

0

10

10

Newham

0

10

10

Southwark

10

10

Tower Hamlets

0

15

15

Wandsworth

0

5

10

Westminster

0

15

Outer London

10

70

90

Barking and Dagenham

0

15

Barnet

Bexley

0

Brent

10

Bromley

0

Croydon

0

5

Ealing

0

10

Enfield

0

0

Greenwich

10

10

Harrow

0

0

Havering

0

Hillingdon

0

Hounslow

10

10

Kingston upon Thames

0

Merton

Redbridge

0

0

Richmond upon Thames

0

0

0

Sutton

0

10

Waltham Forest

0

10

South East

10

130

180

Bracknell Forest

0

0

Brighton and Hove

5

10

Buckinghamshire

10

East Sussex

0

10

Hampshire

20

30

Isle Of Wight

0

Kent

0

25

30

Medway Towns

0

5

15

Milton Keynes

10

Oxfordshire

0

5

15

Portsmouth

0

0

Reading

0

10

15

Slough

0

5

Southampton

0

0

Surrey

5

35

West Berkshire

0

0

West Sussex

10

10

Windsor and Maidenhead

0

0

Wokingham

0

0

South West

60

60

Bath and North East Somerset

0

5

Bournemouth

Bristol, City of

0

10

10

Cornwall

0

10

10

Devon

10

10

Dorset

0

0

Gloucestershire

0

5

5

Isles of Scilly

0

0

0

North Somerset

0

Plymouth

0

10

Poole

0

0

Somerset

0

South Gloucestershire

0

0

Swindon

0

Torbay

0

0

0

Wiltshire

0

1 Source: SSDA903 return on children looked after.

2 Only the last occasion on which a child ceased to be looked after in the year has been counted.

3 Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short term placements.

4 Special Guardianship orders were introduced on 30 December 2005. Consequently figures for year ending 31 March 2006 only account for the last three months of the data collection year.

5 To ensure that no individual can be identified from statistical tables, we use conventions for the rounding and suppression of very small numbers. National figures have been rounded t o the nearest100 if they exceed 1,000 or to the nearest 10 otherwise. Numbers at local authority level have been rounded to the nearest five and numbers at region level have been rounded to the nearest 10. Numbers of five or less have been suppressed and replaced with a hyphen (—) except where the number is zero.