Reporting year 2024

Stability measures for children looked after in England

Statistics on the stability of Children Looked After (CLA) in their placement, at school and in their professional support, for CLA on 31 March each year.

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• Produced by: Department for Education
• Published: 12 June 2025
• Last updated: 22 January 2026

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• Featured tables

  Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by users and can be adapted to switch between different categories.

• Data sets: download or create tables

  Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

• Data guidance

  Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

• Data catalogue

  Alternatively use our data catalogue to search and filter for specific data sets from this release or our entire library, providing full data summaries, data previews and access to API data sets.

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Featured tables

Featured tables are pre-prepared tables created from a statistical release's data sets. They provide statistics that are regularly requested by some users (such as local councils, regional government or government policy teams) and can be adapted to switch between different categories (such as different geographies, time periods or characteristics where available).

12 featured tables

• P1a - Placement stability during the year by characteristics - NATIONAL

  Placement stability for CLA on 31 March by gender, age on 31 March, ethnicity, first legal status and first placement during the year, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2020 to 2024

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• P1b - Placement stability during the previous 2 years by characteristics - NATIONAL

  Placement stability for CLA on 31 March by gender, age on 31 March, ethnicity, first legal status and first placement during the previous 2 years, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2020 to 2024

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• P2 - Placement stability (2.5 year measure) by characteristics - NATIONAL

  Placement stability for CLA aged under 16 on 31 March looked after continuously for at least 2.5 years by gender, age, ethnicity, legal status, placement, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2020 to 2024

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• P3 - Placement stability during the year and previous 2 years - LA

  Placement stability for CLA on 31 March and CLA aged under 16 on 31 March looked after continuously for at least 2.5 years, England, 2020 to 2024

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• S1a - School stability during the year by characteristics - NATIONAL

  School stability for CLA on 31 March by gender, age on 31 March, ethnicity, first legal status and first placement during the year, school phase, SEN provision, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2020 to 2024

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• S1b - School stability during the previous 2 years by characteristics - NATIONAL

  School stability for CLA on 31 March by gender, age, ethnicity, first legal status and first placement during the previous 2 years, school phase, SEN provision, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2020 to 2024

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• S2a - School stability during the year - LA

  School stability during the year for CLA on 31 March, England, 2020 to 2024

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• S2b - School stability during the previous 2 years - LA

  School stability during the previous 2 years for CLA on 31 March, England, 2020 to 2024

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• SW1 - Social worker stability during the year by characteristics - NATIONAL

  Social worker stability for CLA on 31 March by gender, age on 31 March, ethnicity, first legal status and first placement during the year, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2024

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• SW2 - Reason for social worker changes during the year - NATIONAL

  Reason for social worker changes during the year for CLA on 31 March, England, 2024

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• SW3 - Social worker stability during the year - LA

  CLA on 31 March by social worker stability during the year, England, 2024

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• C1 - Combined measures of stability (placement, school and social worker) during the year by characteristics - NATIONAL

  Combined stability for CLA on 31 March by gender, age on 31 March, ethnicity, first legal status and first placement during the year, UASC/non-UASC, England, 2024

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Data sets: download or create tables

Data sets present comprehensive open data from which users can create their own tables using the EES table tool or download a zipped CSV file.

9 data sets available for download

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• Placement stability by characteristics

  National

  Number of placements during the year and previous 2 years (placement stability) for CLA on 31 March by gender, age, ethnicity, first legal status and placement during the year/previous 2 years, UASC/non-UASC.

  • Number of rows: 4,300
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • CLA group
    • Number of placements
  • Time period: 2020 to 2024

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• Placement stability for children looked after for 2.5 years

  National

  CLA aged under 16 on 31 March who had been looked after continuously for at least 2.5 years and who were living with the same carer for at least 2 years, by gender, age, ethnicity, legal status (on 31 March), placement (on 31 March), UASC/non-UASC.

  • Number of rows: 765
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • Number of placements
  • Time period: 2020 to 2024

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Placement stability by local authority

  Local authority, National, Regional

  LA level data for CLA on 31 March: *with three of more placements during the year/previous 2 years *aged under 16 looked after continuously for at least 2.5 years and living with the same carer for at least 2 years.

  • Number of rows: 5,010
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Number of placements
  • Time period: 2020 to 2024

  Data set information page
  Create table

• School stability by characteristics

  National

  Number of school moves during the year and previous 2 years (school stability) for CLA on 31 March by gender, age, ethnicity, first legal status and placement during the year/previous 2 years, school phase, SEN provision, type of need, UASC/non-UASC.

  • Number of rows: 4,600
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • CLA group
    • Characteristic
    • Move Measure
  • Time period: 2020 to 2024

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• School stability by local authority

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of school moves during the year and previous two years (school stability) for CLA on 31 March at local authority level.

  • Number of rows: 6,680
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Move Measure
    • CLA group
    • Number of school moves
  • Time period: 2020 to 2024

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Social worker stability by characteristics

  National

  Number of social workers during the year (social worker stability) for CLA on 31 March by gender, age, ethnicity, first legal status and placement during the year, UASC/non-UASC.

  • Number of rows: 219
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • Number of social workers
  • Time period: 2024

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• Social worker reasons for change

  National

  Reason for each social worker change during the year, including the change to the social worker already assigned to a child at the beginning of the year (1 April) if relevant.

  • Number of rows: 11
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Reason for social worker change
  • Time period: 2024

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Social worker stability by local authority

  Local authority, National, Regional

  Number of social workers during the year (social worker stability) for CLA on 31 March at local authority level.

  • Number of rows: 330
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Number of social workers
  • Time period: 2024

  Data set information page
  Create table

• Combined stability by child characteristics

  National

  Combined stability in all three measures (placement stability, school stability and social worker stability) for CLA on 31 March by gender, age, ethnicity, first legal status and placement during the year, UASC/non-UASC.

  • Number of rows: 153
  • Indicators:
    • Number
    • Percentage
  • Filters:
    • Characteristic
    • Number of measures with high instability
  • Time period: 2024

  Data set information page
  Create table

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Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This document describes the data included in the underlying data files of the ‘Stability Measures for Children Looked After in England: 2024’ Official Statistics in Development release. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government Guidance (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least three stars for Open Data (opens in 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 data is based upon information collected in the SSDA903 (CLA) data collection and, for school stability only, the pupil level school census. 

Information on the coverage of the SSDA903 collection can be found in the data guidance for the ‘Children looked after in England’ publication. 

The school census collects information on pupils attending state-funded schools in England each term.

The longitudinal nature of the SSDA903 collection means historical information can be amended each year, so we update all time series figures published in each release. Numbers and percentages are based on children looked after on 31 March each year and exclude children looked after under an agreed  series of short term placements. 

File formats and conventions

Rounding and suppression

National and regional figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.  Local authority figures are unrounded.

Where any number is shown as zero, the original figure submitted was zero. 

The following symbols have been used in the release:

• ‘c’ to protect confidentiality. Secondary suppression may have been applied
• ‘z’ for not applicable
• ‘x’ for not available
• ‘k’ used for a value that would round to zero but is not zero, for example where a percentage is <0.5% 

For percentages:

• where the numerator or denominator is small then the figure is replaced by ‘c’
• they may not sum to 100% due to rounding
• they are rounded to whole numbers

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Stability measures for children looked after in England statistics and data:

Children Looked After data team

Email: cla.stats@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Karen Attew

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