Care leavers (now 22-25 years) - in contact with the responsible authority - by local authority
Latest data
Published
Last updated
LA data on whether the care leaver was in touch with their LA for support. Data is available for young people who contacted the LA and requested and received support. For older care leavers the cohort may be small.
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Data set details
- Theme
- Children's social care
- Publication
- Children looked after in England including adoptions
- Release
- Reporting year 2025
- Release type
- Number of rows
- 5,976
- Geographic levels
- Local authority, National, Regional
- Indicators
- Number
- Percentage
- Filters
- Age of care leaver
- Breakdown
- Time period
- 2023 to 2025
Data set preview
| time_period | time_identifier | geographic_level | country_code | country_name | region_code | region_name | old_la_code | la_name | new_la_code | care_leaver_age | breakdown | care_leaver_count | care_leaver_percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Reporting year | National | E92000001 | England | 22 years | Care leaver not in touch | 4900 | 42 | |||||
| 2025 | Reporting year | National | E92000001 | England | 22 years | Total | 11670 | 100 | |||||
| 2025 | Reporting year | National | E92000001 | England | 22 years | Young person has requested and received support | 6780 | 58 | |||||
| 2025 | Reporting year | National | E92000001 | England | 23 years | Care leaver not in touch | 6500 | 57 | |||||
| 2025 | Reporting year | National | E92000001 | England | 23 years | Total | 11320 | 100 |
Variables in this data set
| Variable name | Variable description |
|---|---|
| breakdown | Breakdown |
| care_leaver_age | Age of care leaver |
| care_leaver_count | Number |
| care_leaver_percent | Percentage |
Footnotes
- National and regional numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10. Percentages rounded to the nearest whole number. Figures in some tables may be suppressed, denoted by a 'c', percentages <0.5% are denoted by a 'k'. Figures exclude young people who were looked after under an agreed series of short term placements, those who have died since leaving care, those who have returned home to parents or someone with parental responsibility for a continuous period of at least 6 months and those whose care was transferred to another local authority. Historical data may differ from older publications which is mainly due to amendments made by local authorities after the previous publication.
- In touch, activity and accommodation information for 22-25 year old care leavers relates to the latest contact in the year, if the young person requested and received support from the local authority. Local authorities are not expected to be in touch and initiate contact with young people over age 21 who have not requested or received support during the reporting period. This data is collected and reported to record the numbers of older care leavers who are accessing their entitlement to support and to better understand their activity and accommodation status.
- Data was collected for the first time in 2023, and in some cases may be an undercount of the full cohort, particularly for the older care leavers. In 2023, we suspect the number of 24-year-olds could be undercounted by up to 3% and 25-year-olds could be undercounted by up to 10% (when comparing to the number of 20- and 21-year-old care leavers reported in 2019).
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Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Care leavers (now 22-25 years) - in contact with the responsible authority - by local authority statistics and data:
Looked-after children statistics team
Email: cla.stats@education.gov.ukContact name: Justin Ushie