The number of looked-after children in England fell by 2% in 2024-25, dropping to its lowest level since 2021, Department for Education figures have revealed.
The second consecutive annual fall in the care population - from 83,530 to 81,770 - came in the wake of 15 consecutive increases up to March 2023, when the number hit 83,840.
The latest drop was driven by a 12% decrease in the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the care system from 2024-25, while there were also a rise in the numbers leaving care on a special guardianship order.
Though a falling care population is in line with the government's policy objectives (see box), another trend in the data was totally contrary to minister's aims: a 9% rise, from 2024-25, in the number looked after in children's homes.
The government's key social care objectives
- Children should remain with their families and be safely prevented from entering the care system, through improved support via multidisciplinary family help teams, along with the use of family group decision making meetings to enable families to develop their own solutions to child safeguarding and welfare issues.
- Supporting children unable to stay with their families to live with kinship carers or in fostering families, rather than in residential care, through improved support for kinship carers and the recruitment and retention of more foster carers.
- Fixing "the broken care market" to end "excessive and exploitative profit making" through tighter regulation and regionalised commissioning of placements.
- Investing in the "key enablers" of the children's social care system: the workforce, data systems, the evidence base and information sharing.
Fewer children going into care
The fall in the care population was significantly down to a drop in the number of children going into care.Excluding cases where children transferred between authorities, 29,630 entered care in 2024-25, compared with 30,980 in 2023-24, a drop of 4% (1,350).
Most of this fall (880) was accounted for by there being significantly fewer unaccompanied asylum-seeking children entering care in 2024-25, with 4,480 doing so, down from 5,360 in 2023-24.
Overall, the number of unaccompanied children fell from 7,440 in March 2024 - a record high - to 6,540 this year, a drop of 12%.
More special guardianship orders
There was also a small year-on-year increase in the number of children leaving care, from 31,640 in 2023-24 to 31,810 to 2024-25, after taking account of transfers between authorities.The reason for leaving care that saw the biggest increase was the young person turning 18 and remaining with their carers, of whom there were 6,000 in 2024-25, up from 5,390 in 2023-24.
There was also a significant increase in the number leaving through a special guardianship order (SGO), which rose by 6%, from 3,890 to 4,110, having been relatively stable from 2018-19 to 2023-24.
As in previous years, the vast majority of carers granted an SGO (90%) were relatives or friends of the child, with most of this group - 2,800, up from 2,470 the previous year - also having previously fostered the child.
Growing numbers in children's homes...
The increasing use of SGOs is in line with the government's objective to increase the use of kinship care.However, while the DfE has said that it wants to to reduce reliance on children's homes, to "support better outcomes for more children" and cut spending, the number of children in residential care grew by 9% in the year to March 2025, from 8,710 to 9,480.
This is the latest in a series of year-on-year increases dating back to at least 2018-19, with the proportion of looked-after children placed in homes rising from 9% to 12% in the past three years.
The increase reflects a doubling in the number of applications to register children's homes with Ofsted in the past year, which has required the regulator to introduce a new policy to prioritise the registration of services where there is greatest need.
...but fewer in foster care
At the same time, the number of children in foster care fell by 2%, from 55,960 to 54,820, in the year to March 2025, a level not seen since 2018, despite the care population being 8.5% bigger now than it was then.The proportion of children looked after in foster care was stable year on year at 67%, with about a quarter of this group cared for by family and friends carers, which was also in line with last year's data.
Placement location and stability
Earlier this week, MacAlister voiced concerns about children being placed increasingly far from home, based on the 2024 children in care data.The 2025 figures showed that the proportion of children placed more than 20 miles from home had remained stable year on year, at 22%, though the share placed out of area decreased slightly, from 45% to 44%.
Placement stability was also relatively unchanged year on year, with 10% of children having had three or more placements in the previous year, compared with 11% in 2023-24.
More care leavers are NEET
Data on care leavers, meanwhile, showed a third consecutive annual rise in the number of those aged 19-21 who were not in education, employment or training (NEET), which reached 15,290 (40%), up from 14,300 (39%) in 2024.This compares with 12.7% of 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK who were NEET as of July to September 2025, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.
And despite the reduction in the number of young people claiming asylum in the care population, the number of former unaccompanied children who were care leavers rose significantly, from 14,530 to 16,310 in the year to March 2025.
This reflects the significant number of unaccompanied children who have come into care since 2020. Local authorities have repeatedly warned that the £270 they receive per week from the Home Office to support eligible former unaccompanied children was far from adequate, a point made in a report last year from East Midlands Councils.
