Looked After Children: Quarterly Figures on Entries, Exits, and Totals

Quarterly figures track the number of children entering care, leaving care, and the total looked after at quarter's end. The data likely contains counts aggregated by time period and possibly geographic area. It supports monitoring of child welfare system dynamics and service demand over time.

Use Cases

• Monitoring care system capacity based on total looked-after children counts.
• Analyzing trends in child protection interventions based on entries into care.
• Evaluating permanency planning outcomes based on children ceasing to be looked after.
• Reporting statutory performance indicators for children's services.

Strengths

• Cross-platform presence on eu_open_data and uk_data suggests established importance and use.
• Time range spans from at least 2014/15 to the present, enabling longitudinal analysis.
• Quarterly frequency provides more granular insight than annual statistics.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing, including column definitions, row counts, and file formats.
• Conflicting last-updated dates (2017 vs. 2026) create uncertainty about data freshness.
• The absence of a specified license restricts clarity on permissible reuse.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Administrative collection by children's services, likely aggregated by local authorities.

Time Range

2014/15 to present

Freshness

2026-04-29 06:01:58.168014

Geography

Likely United Kingdom, inferred from platform (uk_data) and organization.