Information on Children Looked After as at 31st March 1999

1. Introduction

Background to children looked after in scotland

Local authorities have responsibilities under the children (Scotland) act 1995 to provide support to vulnerable young people. Some children will be looked after for only a short period of time, others may be looked after for several short periods of time and some for substantial periods of time. Local authorities regularly review the range of provision of services made for an individual child.

Legislation

The relevant provisions of the children (scotland) act 1995 came into operation on 1^st april 1997. Previously local authorities had similar responsibilities under the social work (Scotland) act 1968. Under this latter act, children were referred to as ‘children in care or under supervision’. However, under the children (Scotland) act 1995, the terminology is now ‘children looked after’. The phrase ‘children in care / looked after’ is used in this information note to identify information relating to the period up to 31^st March 1997 and the period from 1^st April 1997 onwards.

The range of provision

Local authorities make a wide range of services available for looked after children. This information note only covers the type of accommodation which is provided.

The Data

Information in this note is based on data collected in early 1999 by the social work services group statistics branch of the scottish office.

In late 1998, local authorities completed a brief aggregate return providing details of the number, gender, age group and accommodation arrangements of children in care / looked after at 31^st March 1997 and 31^st March 1998. This information was published by information note on 16^th December 1998. A return asking for the same level of detail for children looked after at 31^st March 1999 was sent to local authorities this year for completion. the purpose of this note is to publish the information from these 1999 returns. Figures from earlier years have also been included in this note for comparison purposes.

Completed returns for 1999 were received from all local authorities with the exception of midlothian. Estimated figures have been calculated for Midlothian, based on previous years’ returns, and these estimates have been included in the Scotland figures given in this information note. In addition, in some cases, authorities were only able to provide partial breakdowns for age and/or gender and/or accommodation arrangements for children looked after as at 31^st March 1999. Where this was the case, breakdowns were estimated and these are also included in the national figures given in this note.

2. The numbers of boys and girls in care / looked after

A summary of the number of children in care / looked after for 1988, 1993, 1997, 1998 and 1999 is given in table 1.The total number of children looked after at 31^st march 1999 was 11,191, an increase of 3½ per cent on the figure for 1998. Since 1988, the number of children in care / looked after is estimated to have fallen by just over 1,000. Tthis estimate needs to be viewed with caution as some of the apparent fall in numbers may be a reflection of the use of a different reporting system.

The number of boys and the number of girls looked after increased by 4 and 3 per cent respec-tively in the year to 31^st march 1999. More boys than girls are looked after. In 1999, around 58 per cent of children looked after were boys. Figure 1 shows there are more boys than girls looked after for each age band. the percentage of children looked after at 31^st March 1999 who were boys varied slightly across age bands, ranging from 54 per cent of those aged between 1 and 4 years old, to 60 per cent of those aged between 12 and 16.

Annex 1, at the end of this information note, gives details of the breakdown by gender at 31^st March 1999 for each local authority area. It can be seen that all areas for which a full gender breakdown was available had more boys looked after than girls with the exception of orkney and shetland.

note: total for 1993 includes 30 children whose gender was unknown. figures for 1997, 1998 and 1999 include estimates for authorities which were unable to provide data.

Figure 1 shows that the greatest number of children looked after are in the 12-16 years age group (47 per cent of the total). It can also be seen in table 2 that children aged 12 and over have consistently formed the majority of children in care / looked after over the last 11 years. However, whereas 63 per cent of all children looked after in 1988 fell into this age group, this had fallen to 55 per cent by 1999.

The increase in total numbers in the year to 31^st march 1999 was as a result of increases in the numbers aged 0-4 and 5-11 years of around 180 and 200, respectively.

note: total for 1993 includes 5 children whose age was unknown. figures for 1997, 1998 and 1999 include estimates for authorities which were unable to provide data.

In the year to 31^st March 1999, the number of children looked after at home fell to 5,309 (just under half of the total). In addition, the number in residential care fell slightly over the same period. these falls were, however, more than offset by rises of 360 and 210 in the number looked after with foster carers and with "friends/relatives/other community acc-ommodation", respectively.

Figure 1: numbers of boys and girls looked after at 31st march 1999 by age band

note: the age distribution includes estimates for authorities which were unable to provide age/gender breakdowns.

In comparison to 1988, there was a significant change in the percentage of young people looked after who were with foster carers. In 1988, the percentage with foster carers was 21 per cent but by 1999 it had risen to 28 per cent. By contrast, the number of children looked after in residential accommodation fell from 22 per cent of the total in 1988 to 16 per cent in 1999.

1. friends / relatives / other community accommodation.

note: figures for 1993 do not include 5 children where accom-modation was unknown. figures for 1997, 1998 & 1999 include estimates for authorities which were unable to provide data.

The number of children looked after varied considerably by local authority area as can be seen in Annex 1. The area with the most children looked after was Glasgow City which accounted for over a fifth of the Scotland total. in addition, there were 3 other areas where the total number of children looked after exceeded 600, namely city of Edinburgh, North Lanarkshire and Highland. in contrast, the lowest figures for children looked after were in Orkney, Shetland and Eilean Siar where the totals were less than 50 in each case.

Figure 2 shows, for 1999, the number of children looked after per 1,000 population aged 0-17 years. the average, across Scotland, was 9.8 children per 1,000 aged 0-17 years and this is shown on figure 2 as a horizontal line. it represented an increase on the figure of 9.4 per 1,000 population for 1998. Orkney and South Ayrshire had the lowest figures of under 4 children looked after per 1,000 population. Glasgow City had the highest at around 17 per 1,000 population with Aberdeen City and Highland the next highest at just under 13 per 1,000 population.

Figure 2: number of children looked after at 31^st march 1999 per 1,000 population aged 0-17 years

Further details and analysis of the data presented in this information note are available on request from:

Mr. Alan D. Fleming
Scottish Executive Education Department
Room 52
James Craig Walk
Edinburgh, EH1 3BA

telephone: 0131-244-3745 or fax: 0131-244-5315.

e-mail alan.fleming@scotland.gov.uk

Annex 1: number of children looked after by local authority area at 31st march 1999

1. population figures used are as at 30^th june 1998.

2. figures for boys and girls for aberdeen city have been estimated as aberdeen city council were unable to provide a breakdown of the total by gender.

3. figures provided by city of edinburgh council are estimates.

4. figures for midlothian have been estimated as a completed return was not received from midlothian council.

The information contained on this WWW site is Crown Copyright but may be reproduced without formal permission or charge for personal or in-house use. © 1999