Briefing #002: Cross-regional placements

While the DfE routinely publishes national statistics showing the rates at which children in care are placed with carers outside the boundary of the local authority which is responsible for looking after them, these new data show what moving children away from their home area looks like at a regional scale. Provided by the DfE following a Freedom of Information Act request, the full dataset is available to download below this commentary.

The data show that when viewed at regional scale, regions towards the south of England are more likely to send children outside their own region than regions further north and west. London accommodates 23% of its children in care outside London; the next highest proportion at regional level is the South East (19%), followed by the East of England (17%) and the South west (16%). The North West and North East present the highest proportions of children placed within their regional boundaries (94% and 91% respectively).

	2023			2024
Region	Count of CLA at March 2023	Count placed in region	% CLA placed in-region	Count of CLA at March 2024	Count placed in region	% CLA placed in-region
East Midlands	6620	5520	83%	6570	5440	83%
East of England	7050	5870	83%	6870	5710	83%
London	9680	7470	77%	9640	7430	77%
North East	5970	5510	92%	6110	5570	91%
North West	15150	14210	94%	15090	14140	94%
South East	11260	9160	81%	11180	8990	80%
South West	6900	5790	84%	6980	5810	83%
West Midlands	11820	10620	90%	11920	10700	90%
Yorks & Humber	9370	8250	88%	9270	8130	88%
England	83820	72400	86%	83630	71920	86%

It’s also clear that, while some regions arrange care for significantly high proportions of children outside their home region, and some regions place significantly more children outside their region than they receive into their region, these two groups of regions aren’t exactly the same.

For example, Yorkshire and the Humber has a relatively high rate of children remaining within its regional border, but still sends far more children outside its border than it receives from LAs in other regions, because very low numbers of children come into that region from other regions. The same is true of the North East, and of the South West. Meanwhile, while the South East places a relatively high rate of children beyond its regional border, it also hosts a relatively high rate of children from other regions’ LAs. The West Midlands is closest to being “balanced” in this respect.

Region	Placed by region outside region	Placed by other regions inside region	External placements minus “hosted” placements
East Midlands	1130	1520	-390
East of England	1160	1510	-350
London	2200	1570	630
North East	550	230	320
North West	950	1190	-240
South East	2190	1970	220
South West	1170	640	530
West Midlands	1220	1290	-70
Yorks & Humber	1150	710	440
Grand Total	11720	10630	1090
NB: total discrepancy due to placement locations unknown or outside England, and rounding

But this is not only a question of balance; whether or not a region “imports” enough children to equal the number it “exports”, a high volume of movement between regions means more children placed far away from the places they know, and more social workers supporting children at distance.

Even the best performing region for retaining children in-region, the North West, placed 6% of children outside its regional border. In some cases these children will be placed well; it’s not always the case that a distant location means bad care, and for some children living near administrative  boundaries, those boundaries don’t align with their personal localities anyway.

However, there are also clear differences in how likely a child is to grow up within their home region depending on the kind of accommodation we have identified for them, and this suggests to us that placement sufficiency is a driver of extra-regional care activity. For example, In almost all regions, in-region residential care occurs at a much lower relative rate than in-region foster care.

We know from talking to LAs that suitable residential care is particularly difficult to secure in many instances. Of nine administrative regions in Egland, only the North West provides more than 90% of residential care within its regional boundary. In the South West, 89% of fostering placements are retained within the region, but only 63% of residential placements. Most other regions display similar, albeit gentler, differences.

	Fostering			Residential
Region	Count at March 2024	Count placed in region	% placed in region	Count at March 2024	Count placed in region	% placed in region
East Midlands	4230	3590	85%	1520	1160	76%
East of England	4630	3930	85%	1590	1240	78%
London	6640	5220	79%	2060	1390	67%
North East	4270	4030	94%	990	780	79%
North West	9910	9380	95%	2880	2610	91%
South East	7290	6020	83%	2340	1650	71%
South West	4780	4260	89%	1360	860	63%
West Midlands	8200	7610	93%	2000	1610	81%
Yorks & Humber	6480	5860	90%	1560	1180	76%
England	56430	49900	88%	16300	12480	77%

There are also sub-national regional clusters. Looking at the South East specifically, the region was most likely to make use of extra-regional care in London, the East of England, and the South West (1530 of 2190 children). The majority of the children arriving in the South East from other regions arrived from the same three regions (1660 of 1970 children).

To London, SW and EoE from the SE	From London, SW and EoE to the SE
1530	1660

Typical routes for arrivals into the country for unaccompanied asylum seeking (UAS) children, possibly combined with the nature of the inter-authority arrangements for transfer of care of UAS children, lead to some variation in data patterns compared to the wider cohort of children in care.

While elsewhere in this data London appears to move more children outside the region than it hosts on behalf of other regions, it nevertheless appears to host many more UAS children from LAs located outside London than it sends outside its own regional border. The majority of these children arrive in London from the South East.

Region	UAS children placed by region	Placed by region outside region	Placed by other regions inside region	External placements minus “hosted” placements
East Midlands	590	140	80	60
East of England	920	140	110	30
London	1200	60	700	-640
North East	310	90	0	90
North West	770	30	70	-40
South East	1600	480	90	390
South West	560	200	10	190
West Midlands	820	40	180	-140
Yorks & Humber	600	80	20	60
Grand Total	7370	1260	1260	0

Finally, we note that proportions of in-region and extra-regional placements did not vary significantly between 2023 and 2024, the last two years of data currently available.

	2023			2024
Region	Count of CLA at March 2023	Count placed in region	% CLA placed in-region	Count of CLA at March 2024	Count placed in region	% CLA placed in-region
East Midlands	6620	5520	83%	6570	5440	83%
East of England	7050	5870	83%	6870	5710	83%
London	9680	7470	77%	9640	7430	77%
North East	5970	5510	92%	6110	5570	91%
North West	15150	14210	94%	15090	14140	94%
South East	11260	9160	81%	11180	8990	80%
South West	6900	5790	84%	6980	5810	83%
West Midlands	11820	10620	90%	11920	10700	90%
Yorks & Humber	9370	8250	88%	9270	8130	88%
England	83820	72400	86%	83630	71920	86%

All figures in this publication are rounded to the nearest 10.

To explore the data further, we provide the below matrix showing which regions place in which regions, as well as a link to the full DfE FOI response data file.

	Region of placement as at 31st March 2024
Placing region	East Midlands	East of England	Inner London	North East	North West	Outer London	No region	South East	South West	West Midlands	Yorks & Humber	Grand Total
East Midlands	5440	220	10	10	120	40	20	100	40	380	190	6570
East of England	290	5710	50	10	40	290	40	310	40	60	30	6870
Inner London	40	210	1730	0	20	1490	30	360	20	50	10	3960
North East	30	20	20	5570	140	30	70	40	20	40	140	6120
North West	90	20	10	70	14140	30	290	40	30	180	190	15090
Outer London	60	470	440	20	60	3770	50	680	20	70	30	5670
South East	190	390	150	10	90	660	160	8990	330	170	40	11180
South West	60	80	30	10	100	130	190	310	5810	240	20	6980
West Midlands	390	60	30	20	240	50	170	80	120	10700	60	11920
Yorks & Humber	370	40	10	80	380	30	70	50	20	100	8130	9280
Grand Total	6960	7220	2480	5800	15330	6520	1090	10960	6450	11990	8840	83640
NB: to read this table for London, ensure both “Inner London” and “Outer London” are summed correctly

Freedom of Information table can be found here