Children In Care Mrs. Dunwoody asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table in the Official Report showing the total number of children in care for each year from 1974 until the present, the number of children placed with foster parents for each of those years, the number adopted for each of those years, and the yearly percentage change in each of these figures for each of these years. Mr. Newton The available information is given in the following table. Mr. Newton The number of children in care of local authorities in England and Wales as at 31 March 1980 was 100,200. Information on the ethnic origin of children in care is not collected centrally.