The government produces an annual statistical report of the numbers of children that are looked after by local authorities as at the end of March. This comes from the SSDA903 return produced by local authorities. They compare this number to the number of children adopted from care each year. That, of course, is a statistical error as they are comparing numbers of children to numbers per year. However, it is worth looking in a bit of detail at the numbers anyway: The total number of children in looked after by local authorities (apart from short term placements) as at 31st March 2015 was 69,540. Of those 19,850 were voluntarily in care under S20 placements. 290 were in the youth justice system. That leaves 42,030 under interim or final care orders - I assume that also includes an EPO, 20 "freed for adoption." That means they were identified as needing adoption by 30 December 2005 and still have not been adopted. (See A&S v Lancashire County Council for an examp...
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