Reporting year 2024

Children accommodated in secure children's homes

Data guidance

Published 16 May 2024

Description

This document describes the data included in the 'Children accommodated in secure children's homes: 31 March 2024' National Statistics release’s underlying data files. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in a new tab) and is intended to meet at least three stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab).

The methodology document for this subject should be referenced alongside this release. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality and how the data is produced.

Coverage

This release contains statistics on children accommodated in secure children's homes in England and Wales, including:

• numbers of approved and available places
• availability and occupancy rates
• children accommodated by sex, age, ethnicity and length of stay.

Information is taken from the DfE SA1 data return collected from secure children's homes. 

Figures relate to the position at 31 March except for 2020 when the reference date was changed to 29 February to reflect the position in secure children's homes before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the national lockdown.

File formats and conventions

The following symbols have been used in this release:

• ‘c’ figure suppressed to protect confidentiality. There may be some secondary suppression.
• ‘z’ for not applicable
• ‘x’ not available.

For percentages:

• figures may be suppressed with a ‘c’ to protect confidentiality
• they may not sum to 100% due to rounding

Please note: Users are advised to be cautious if pivoting the csv tables in Excel – suppressed and not applicable cells may be represented as ‘0’ (zero).

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

National totals of places and children accommodated

• Filename: sa2024_national_data.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2010 to 2024
• Content:

  Numbers of secure children’s homes, places approved and available for use, children accommodated, places contracted to the Ministry of Justice and as percentage of approved places, availability and occupancy rates, number of Youth Custody Service placements, for England, England and Wales, 2010 to 2024.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
availability_rate	Percentage of approved places available (availability rate)
children_accommodated	Number of children accommodated
children_placed_ycs	Number of children placed by YCS
moj_places	Number of places contracted to the MoJ
number_of_secure_homes	Number of secure children's homes
occupancy_rate	Percentage of approved places occupied (occupancy rate)
perc_approved_moj	Percentage of approved places contracted to the MoJ
places_approved	Number of places approved
places_available	Number of places available

Footnotes

1. Figures are at 31 March each year, except for 2020 where figures are at 29 February to reflect the position before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the national lockdown.
2. Percentages in charts and tables are rounded to the nearest whole number. Where percentages apply to a group of categories they may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Characteristics of children placed in secure children's homes

• Filename: sa2024_characteristics.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2010 to 2024
• Content:

  Numbers of children accommodated in secure children's homes by sex, age of child, length of stay, placement type, ethnicity, for England and Wales, 2010 to 2024.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
characteristics	Characteristics
children_accommodated	Number of children accommodated
percentage_children_accommodated	Percentage of children accommodated

Footnotes

1. Figures are at 31 March each year, except for 2020 where figures are at 29 February to reflect the position before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the national lockdown.
2. 'c' denotes figures suppressed to preserve confidentiality.
3. 'x' not available. Ethnicity was reported for the first time in 2021.
4. Percentages in charts and tables are rounded to the nearest whole number. Where percentages apply to a group of categories they may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Places approved and available, and children accommodated in individual secure children's homes

• Filename: sa2024_individual_home.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2010 to 2024
• Content:

  Number of places approved and available for use, number of children accommodated and occupancy rate in individual secure children's homes, 2010 to 2024.

  Individual home notes are:

  • Beechfield was undergoing renovation between 2017 and 2019 whilst unoccupied. It closed in 2019.
  • Swanwick Lodge reported in 2018 ongoing staffing issues and building works.
  • Leverton Hall closed on 31 July 2014.
  • Red Bank closed on 31 May 2014. It included the homes Newton House, Willows House and Vardy House.
  • Adel Beck was previously known as East Moor until January 2015.
  • Marydale Lodge was previously known as St Catherine's until 2020.
  • Lansdowne was temporarily closed at the date of the 2023 collection and at the time it was approved for 7 places. It had reopened by the 2024 collection.
  • Hillside is the secure children's home in Wales.
  • Clare Lodge was temporarily restricted to 5 places in 2023, but returned to 16 places in summer 2023.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
children_accommodated	Number of children accommodated
occupancy_rate	Percentage of approved places occupied (occupancy rate)
places_approved	Number of places approved
places_available	Number of places available
secure_home	Secure children's home name

Footnotes

1. Figures are at 31 March each year, except for 2020 where figures are at 29 February to reflect the position before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the national lockdown.
2. 'c' denotes figures suppressed to preserve confidentiality.
3. Percentages in charts and tables are rounded to the nearest whole number. Where percentages apply to a group of categories they may not sum to 100% due to rounding.