This is the first release of these statistics bringing statistics on all three measures of stability together. The methodology will be updated with each new statistical release. The next revision will be made when the release is updated.
The DfE has collected the CLA SSDA903 return from local authorities for each full 12 month period since 1992. The latest collection covers the year from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. There have been a number of significant changes to the collection since 1992. More information on the SSDA903 return is available in the CLA return: guide to submitting data (opens in a new tab). The collection provides the latest information on children looked after by local authorities and care leavers. A more detailed timeline of changes to the SSDA903 is in the main CLA publication methodology. The SSDA903 data is collected in a longitudinal database, with one record for every episode of care. Local authorities update the database every year, including making amendments to previous years’ records where there have been changes.
The school census collects individual school characteristics and pupil records 3 times a year. In England, all of the following schools are required to provide the information collected in this census to the Department for Education (DfE):
Maintained nursery Primary Middle-deemed primary Middle-deemed secondary Secondary All-through Special schools (including non-maintained special schools) Pupil referral units or alternative provision schools (PRU or AP) Academy schools (including free schools, University Technical Colleges (UTCs) and studio schools) City Technology Colleges (CTCs).
For school stability, data is derived from matching the SSDA903 collection to the school census. The main matching key is the child’s unique pupil number (opens in a new tab) (UPN), which identifies each pupil attending a state funded school in England. Allocated on first entry to a school, the UPN is generated using a nationally specified formula and is expected to remain with a pupil throughout their school career regardless of any change in school or local authority. Local authorities are required to return UPNs as part of the SSDA903 return. For more information on matching using UPN, see the methodology document for the ‘Outcomes for children in need, including children looked after’ statistical release. Once matched, children whose date of birth differed between the SSDA903 collection and the school census were removed.
Placement stability analysis was previously published in the Children looked after in England including adoptions publication. This included extended placement stability analysis at national level (including breakdowns by child characteristics) in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 publications. The statistics in the 2024 publication are also published here. These focus on the following social care groups:
CLA on 31 March
CLA 12 months on 31 March - CLA continuously for at least twelve months on 31 March
CLA less than 12 months on 31 March - CLA continuously for less than twelve months on 31 March
CLA for 2 years on 31 March (added in 2023) – CLA on 31 March each year who also spent at least one day in care in the previous year ending 31 March
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
For the first four of these social care groups, the figures are broken down by first placement during the year and corresponding legal status. However, for a small number of children (up to 50 in each year), their placement on 31 March has been used instead. The majority of these children were in respite care or a temporary placement for their first placement.
For 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, note the methodology has changed compared to figures published in the 2020 publication of Children looked after in England including adoptions. The figures now a. exclude children who started a period of care under an agreed series of short-term placements which later became continuous and b. include children in fostering placements with relative(s) or friend(s) or other foster carers who is/are also an approved adopter(s) – fostering for adoption/concurrent planning (placement codes U2 and U5) as a placement change.
Placement stability measure
The number of placements during the year includes a child's first placement during the year (on 1 April, or from the date they first started care during the year if they were not in care on 1 April), and any subsequent placements involving a change in carer.
High placement stability is defined as a looked after child experiencing 3 or more placements during the year ending 31 March.
School stability analysis was previously published in the Children looked after in England including adoptions publication. This included extended school stability analysis at national level (including breakdowns by child characteristics) in the 2022 and 2023 publications.
For CLA on 31 March, there are two school stability measures:
One-year measure (added in 2022): these figures track the number of times a child moves school over the one-year period between the 1 April and 31 March. This time period spans two academic years.
Two-year measure (added in 2023): these figures track the number of times a child moves school over a two-year period between 1 April of the preceding year and 31 March of the relevant year. This time period spans three academic years. For children to be included in the cohort for the two-year measure, they also had to have spent at least one day in care in the previous year ending 31 March.
Creating the spine
To create the main spine of children for whom we would track school moves, CLA on 31 March each year were matched to the spring census of the preceding year (for the one-year measure) or the preceding two years (for the two-year measure). For example CLA on 31 March 2024 were matched to the spring census 2023 for the one-year measure and to the spring census 2022 for the two-year measure*. This provides a starting point in time from which we can measure school moves. An exception to this is where a child was not aged 4 to 15 in the first of the academic years spanned by the one-year or two-year measures. In these cases, a child was matched to the autumn census in the academic year when their age at the beginning of the academic year was 4 (when they were due to start school). This is shown in the tables below for CLA on 31 March 2024:
One-year measure (spanning academic years 2022/23 and 2023/24):
Age at the beginning of the 2022/23 academic year
One-year measure census starting point
Children aged 4 to 15 (mainly those in reception to year 11 in 2022/23)
Spring 2023
Children aged 3 (mainly those starting reception in 2023/24 academic year)
Autumn 2023
Two-year measure (spanning academic years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24):
Age at the beginning of the 2021/22 academic year
Two-year measure census starting point
Children aged 4 to 15 (mainly those in reception to year 11 in 2021/22)
Spring 2022
Children aged 3 (mainly those starting reception in 2022/23 academic year)
Autumn 2022
Children aged 2 (mainly those starting reception in 2023/24 academic year)
Autumn 2023
* This is a change from the methodology used for the 2022 publication where children were additionally required to match to the summer census of the following year. This improvement was made to improve the match rate. This had the benefit of increasing the number of children in the spine (by around 750 children in the 2022 figures). The impact on the main measures was minimal. Looking again at the national 2022 figures, the percentages of children with no moves or at least one move during the year were unchanged. The percentages of children with no mid-year moves or at least one mid-year move changed by less than one percentage point.
School moves
The majority of CLA on the spine were tracked across up to five school censuses (for the one-year measure) or eight school censuses (for the two-year measure), beginning with their census starting point (see tables above). So for the majority of CLA on 31 March 2024, school moves were tracked across the following censuses:
One-year measure
Two-year measure
2021/22 academic year
Spring 2022
Summer 2022
2022/23 academic year
Autumn 2022
Spring 2023
Spring 2023
Summer 2023
Summer 2023
2023/24 academic year
Autumn 2023
Autumn 2023
Spring 2024
Spring 2024
Summer 2024
Summer 2024
If a child was not aged 4 to 15 in all the academic years spanned by either the one-year or two-year measures, their moves were tracked only in the academic years during which they fell into the relevant age span. To illustrate this, the two diagrams below show the school moves included for the different age groups of CLA on 31 March 2024:
A school move was included from either 1 April, if the child was already CLA on that date, or from the date a child entered care for the first time during the year, even if they left care and re-entered during the year.
Time series
Figures have not been produced for 2020 as the summer census 2020 was not carried out, due to the COVID pandemic. For the same reason, the following children are also excluded:
2022 data: children aged 15 at the beginning of the 2019/20 academic year – two-year measure
2021 data: children aged 15 at the beginning of the 2019/20 academic year – one-year measure
2021 data: children aged 14 at the beginning of the 2019/20 academic year – two-year measure
Definition of a school move
‘Any move’ is defined as a child moving school (or from no school to a school) in either the one-year or two-year period ending 31 March.
A ‘mid-year move’ is defined as a child moving school (or from no school to a school) in either the one-year or two-year period ending 31 March, excluding the period(s) 1 August to 30 September.
Expected transitional moves from one school phase to another (for example primary school to secondary school at the age of 11) are excluded, where the move happened between 1 August and 30 September. These are defined as those where the child either reached the maximum age of the school they were moving from, or the minimum age of the school they were moving to.
Where a school has academised (resulting in a change of a school’s Unique Reference Number), this move is also excluded.
Characteristics taken from the school census
Special Educational Need (SEN) and primary need - taken from the spring census of the relevant year, e.g. spring census 2023 for 2023 data. Where a child was not tracked in this census, for example children aged 15 in the 2021/22 academic year for the one-year measure for the 2023 data, it was taken from the most recent spring census that their moves were tracked in. There are a small number of children who were not in the relevant spring census, and therefore their SEN is unknown.
School phase – the phase of the school the child was attending prior to their first move during the year (or previous 2 years). A small number of children whose first phase was a state-funded nursery are included in the figures for state-funded primary schools.
School stability measure
The number of school moves during the year.
High school instability is defined as a looked after child experiencing at least one mid-year school move during the year ending 31 March - a move at any point in the year excluding the period 1 August to 30 September.
Social worker data for CLA on 31 March has been collected by DfE for the first time during the 2024 SSDA903 data collection. Statistics on the social worker stability of CLA were previously published in the ‘Stability Index’ by the Children's Commissioner's Office (opens in a new tab) (CCO). Their most recent publication containing social worker stability was the 2019 Stability Index (opens in a new tab), relating to the stability of CLA on 31 March 2018. In the 2022 release of the Children looked after in England including adoptions publication, DfE published social worker stability data collected by CCO for CLA on 31 March 2019 and 2020 on their behalf. Further details on this can be found in the social worker section of the methodology document relating to this publication.
For CLA on 31 March 2024, there is one social worker stability measure:
One-year measure: these figures track the number of social workers assigned to a child over the one-year period between the 1 April and 31 March. If a child is assigned to a social worker more than once during the year, the social worker will only be counted once.
Figures have also been published for the reason a child is assigned a social worker.
Social worker data collection
Information on social worker stability was collected for the first time in 2024 via the SSDA903 return. For each CLA on 31 March 2024 (excluding those solely looked after on respite care), local authorities were required to submit information on every primary social worker episode between 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 – including any social worker episodes in periods within this timescale where the child was not looked after. This included the following information:
A unique ID code for each social worker
The start date of the social worker episode
The end date of the social worker episode
The reason for the social worker change
Data validation
A number of automated data validation checks are carried out at the point of data entry to identify and remove issues such as:
invalid codes
unlikely or impossible sequences of dates
duplicate episodes
Any record which fails the validation checks is highlighted and must be corrected. An explanation of each validation check and guidance on how corrections can be made are documented in the list of validation checks available on the DfE children looked after collection website (opens in a new tab).
Some aggregate return level checks are performed in the system to highlight large changes in return level data compared to the previous year. These are there as prompts for local authorities to check their data. Any outstanding aggregate checks need to have explanatory commentary added to the system before the local authority can sign off their return.
Production of snapshot table and data cleaning
At the end of the data collection a ‘snapshot’ of the social worker data was taken. This snapshot table is checked to make sure:
it has been produced correctly from the database
sample checks show they accurately reflect the live database
The snapshot table then went through a process of data cleaning. This included:
Removing any duplicate social worker episodes
Removing any social worker episodes that either finished before or started after the relevant period of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024
Removing social worker episodes for any children who were not CLA on 31 March 2024
Assessing any unusual dates and making a decision on whether a social worker episode should be included or excluded
The cleaned dataset was then used to produce the data for this statistical release.
Data Quality
Barnet local authority were unable to complete the social worker data return, citing the reason that their system had not been upgraded in time to collect the relevant information.
A number of local authorities reported difficulties in supplying accurate information on reason for social worker change for some or all of its social worker episodes. These local authorities were:
Derby
Hampshire
Lambeth
Leicestershire
Nottingham
West Berkshire
Wigan
Where local authorities were unable to record a reason a child was assigned a social worker, the majority reported that they mainly used ‘Other'. One local authority reported that they used the reason ‘Managing caseloads’. There may also be instances of other reasons being used.
Social worker stability measure
The number of social workers assigned to a child during the year is defined as the number of unique social workers assigned to a child between 1 April and 31 March. For example, if a child had a social worker, moved to a different social worker, then back to the original social worker during the course of the year, then this would count as 2 social workers during the year. The count of social workers includes any social workers assigned to a child within the relevant timescale when the child was not looked after.
High social worker instability is defined as a looked after child experiencing 3 or more social workers during the year ending 31 March.
Rounding and suppression is applied to the data. The National Statistics Code of Practice requires that reasonable steps should be taken to ensure that all published or disseminated statistics produced by the DfE protect confidentiality. The publications follow the DfE policy statement on confidentiality.
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 releases (updated to align with GSS standards):
‘c’ to protect confidentiality. Secondary suppression may be required
‘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:
to protect confidentiality some numbers are replaced by ‘c’
These statistics are badged as "official statistics in development". As the social worker data collection is new, we expect the quality of the data returns to improve over time as the collection becomes established.
‘Official statistics in development’ means statistics that are undergoing a development. They have been produced as far as possible in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.
This can be broadly interpreted to mean that these statistics are:
managed impartially and objectively in the public interest
This statistical release is produced using a final version of the dataset. We do not plan to make any revisions to the publications. If we later discover that a revision is necessary, this will be made in accordance with the DfE statistical policy statement on revisions.
Outcomes for children in need, including children looked after by local authorities in England:a range of outcome measures at national and level authority level for children in need ?(show glossary term definition), including children looked after ?(show glossary term definition) by local authorities in England.
Data is collected and published independently by each of the four countries in the UK. Although there are similarities between the data collected by the four nations, there are also differences which may be down to different policies and legislation and differing historical data collections.
Scotland: Statistics on children’s social work (including children looked after) in Scotland and statistics on the outcomes of looked after children in Scotland are available on the Scottish Government website (opens in a new tab).
