Foster Care Tim Loughton To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many private fostering arrangements have been registered cumulatively in each of the last five years. Kevin Brennan Information on notification of private fostering arrangements has been collected centrally only since 2004-05. The available information can be found in the following table. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |Number of new private fostering arrangements that began during the year| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |2006-07 |1,420 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |2005-06 |1,100 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |2004-05 |630 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Notes:1. Based on year ending 31 March.2. Where a child has had more than one private fostering arrangement during the year, each arrangement has been counted.3. Numbers rounded to the nearest 10.4. These figures are based on the PF1 collection which was introduced in 2004/05; figures for earlier years are not available.| | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ These figures have been taken from SFR 37/2007 ‘Private Fostering Arrangements in England, year ending 31 March 2007’, which was published on 8 November 2007 and is available on the Department’s website here: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000758/index. shtml