Children's social care overview

The Department for Education (DfE) Local Authority Interactive Tool (LAIT) provides access to a wide range of data related to children and young people sourced from various departments across government including children's safeguarding. The tool can be accessed via the link at the bottom of this page. Key findings relating to children's safeguarding below.

Lancashire's-12 key findings (2021/22)

There has been a recent decline in the rates of referrals (per 10,000) to Children's Services, there has also been a decline in the child protection plan rates, child looked after rates have declined to a lesser degree. Below is a summary of the findings within the different staged groups of children's social care. In 2021 Lancashire launched the Family Safeguarding model which has possibly been a key driver in some of the positive performance changes outlined below.

Children in Need

• The rate of cases referred to children's social care in Lancashire-12 has declined considerably in the last 5 years with a current rate (2021/22) of 253.9 per 10,000 population (vs. 459.9 in 2018). This is below the rates seen for England (537.7) and North West (548.1)
• Also during 2021/22 the re-referral rate (new referral case is received within 12 months of the previous one) in Lancashire was 19.1%, this remains below the England (21.5%) and North West (22%) rates.
• Following consistent improvements in Lancashire, the proportion of assessments carried out in time (within 45 working days) is 90% during 2021/22 (up from 78.3% in 2018) , this is higher than seen for England (84.5%) or the North West (81.2%) having previously been lower.
• 18.9% of referrals resulted in an assessment of child not to be in need, a considerable decline has been seen for this figure since 2018 (33.8%). Where previously Lancashire had a higher proportion of children being assessed and found not in need when compared nationally and regionally, the proportion is now below what is seen for England (28.8%) and North West (25.4%).

A child in need is one, as defined by the DfE, who has been assessed by children’s social care to be in need of services e.g. family support, leaving care support, adoption support, or disabled children’s services.

• Since 2018 the Child in Need (CIN) rate has declined in Lancashire, the 2022 rate is 302.4 per 10,000 (vs 362) which is below both England (334.3) and North West (384.3) rates (having historically been higher than the England rate).
• Recent years show a considerable reduction in the proportion of children whose CIN plan had a duration of under 3 months to 14.9% (23.8% in 2018) below the figures seen for both England (27.4%) and North West (24.9%). Further to this there has been a sharp increase in those with a duration of over 2 years (now 58.8% up from 39.8% in 2018). The proportion of 2+ year plans has been increasing regionally and nationally but this has been less severe up to 34.2% for England and 39.4% for the North West.

 Child Protection

• There has been a significant decline in the number and rate of children on protection plans (CPP) since 2018, 485 were recorded at the end of 2022 which results in a CPP rate of 19.2 per 10,000 population – previously 1,245 (50.2 per 10,000). Lancashire's rate is now considerably lower than the rates seen for England (42.1) or the North West (48.5), having previously been higher than England.
• The rate of plans starting per year has also declined 24.5 per 10,000 in 2022 from 61 in 2018, the rate is lower than England and North West.
• The rate of repeat CPP has been increasing in Lancashire an increase has also been observed regionally and nationally. 27.1% of Lancashire CPP had a previous registration, this is higher than both England (23.3%) and North West (23.7%).

Children Looked After

• There has been a very modest reduction in the rate of children being looked after (CLA) between 2018 and 2022 with a current rate of 77.0 per 10,000 – 1,941 children are now in care (-9 since 2018, previous rate of 79 per 10,000). The Lancashire rate is lower than the North West rate (97.0) and the rate of statistical neighbours (81.9) but higher than England (70.0) there has also been a recent decline in rates whilst the England rate has continued to slowly increase.
• The rate of children starting to be looked after for 2022 was 24.0 per 10,000 in Lancashire which is below the rates seen in England (26.0), the North West (29.0), and for statistical neighbours (27.9). The rate has overall declined since 2018, but there has been an increase since 2021.
• The rate of children ceasing to be looked after for 2022 was 27.0 per 10,000 which is no change from 2018, the rate is higher than seen for England (26.0) but is below both the North West rate (30.0) and the rate of statistical neighbours (27.9)
• In Lancashire-12, 9% of CLA had three or more placements in the year 2022 - this is in line with the North West, slightly higher than statistical neighbours (8.9%) and lower than England (10%).
• Further to this, 73% of the Long Term CLA (those in care for over 2.5 years aged under 16) are in a long term placement (duration of 2 or more years)– this is higher than England (71%), North West and statistical neighbours (72%), there was sharp decline in 2019 but since 2020 this has improved.

Care leavers

The leaving care service works with young people aged 16-25, becoming fully allocated to a young person on their 18^th birthday. The below indicators focus on a small portion of this cohort, the group aged 19-21.

• The number of Former relevant care leavers (aged 19-21) continues to increase with Lancashire having 663 in 2022 (441 in 2018).
• Lancashire-12's proportion of 19-21 year old care leavers in education, employment or training (EET) has increased over the last 5 years from 43% in 2018 to 48%. The EET proportion remains lower than that of England (55%), North West (52%) and statistical neighbours (51.2%).
• The percentage of 19-21 year old care leavers in suitable accommodation measures the suitability of accommodation as a proxy for the effectiveness of care leaving services. Lancashire-12 position has been improving significantly over the years but this has plateaued in the period between 2018 and 2022, 89% of care leavers are in suitable accommodation which is higher than seen for England (88%) but lower than for the North West (90%).

Adoptions

The target for most children when they become looked after is for them to return back to their family in due course, or for them to be placed permanently with another family via adoption or another legal order such as a special guardianship order or a residence order, if it would not be appropriate for them to return to their original family.

• During 2021/22 the proportion of Lancashire-12 children looked after who ceased to be looked after who were adopted (11%) was higher than the England (10%) and North West (10%) rates.
• The time taken to complete the adoption process continues to improve. Over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020, the average time taken between a child entering care and moving in with its adoptive foster family was 362 days for Lancashire-12 compared with 367 days for England and 391 for North West.
• The average time taken between court authority being given to place a child and a match being found had decreased to 133 days for Lancashire-12 during 2017-20 and was better than the England (175 days) and North West (164 days) performance.

 

Further data DfE Local Authority Interactive Tool (LAIT) DfE Statistics: looked-after children DfE Statistics: children in need and child protection Children and young people dashboard - As part of the Neighbourhood JSNA, a dashboard has been created to visualise health, education and social care data for Children and Young People Lancashire Family Safeguarding - further information on the Family Safeguarding model Lancashire Children's Services Ofsted report - published January 2023

 Page updated October 2023