The Department for Education has published statistics on looked after children at both national and local authority levels for the financial year 2014-15.
| The number of looked after children has increased steadily over the past seven years. There were 69,540 looked after children at 31 March 2015, an increase of 1% compared to 31 March 2014 and an increase of 6% compared to 31 March 2011. |
| In 2015 the number of children in foster care continued to rise; of the 69,540 children looked after at 31 March, 52,050 (75%) were cared for in a foster placement. |
At 31 March 2015, 42,030 (60%) children were looked after under a care order (either an interim or full care order), a 5% increase compared to 2014 and an 8% increase since 2011. A further 19,850 (29%) children were looked after under a voluntary agreement under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 – this number and percentage has increased steadily since 2013.
However, there has been a drop in the number of children looked after with a placement order at 31 March 2015, from 9,580 (14% of looked after children) in 2014 to 7,320 (11%) in 2015.
| Of the 69,540 children looked after at 31 March 2015, 2,630 (4%) were unaccompanied asylum seeking children. The number of looked after unaccompanied asylum seeking children has been falling since 2009, but increased by 5% between 2013 and 2014 and has increased by 29% between 2014 and 2015. |
There were 31,100 children who ceased to be looked after during the year ending 31 March 2015, an increase of 2% from the previous year’s figure of 30,600 and an increase of 15% from 2011.
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Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2014-to-2015
