About the children in our cared for, care experienced and separated young people

Cumberland covers an area of 3,012 square km and is much more sparsely populated than the national average.

Cumberland has a ‘super-ageing’ population which means that there is an increase in the number of people in the older age groups, and a decrease in the number in the younger age groups. In 2020 nearly a quarter of the Cumberland population were aged over 65. This is a greater proportion than the average for the country. At the same time, more younger people with disabilities are surviving into adulthood and old age, and more people are living for longer with complex needs, frailty, long term conditions and/or dementia. There is a cared for children rate of 88 per 10,000 which is significantly above the national average. In addition to this, a significant number of children are reported as living in ‘relative poverty’ with 16.1% of children living in relatively low-income families. 

In April 2024 Cumberland Council: 

• had 1,531 of our children and young people in need of statutory support and intervention
• had 263 of our children and young people were being helped to be protected by statutory services
• had 480 of our children and young people were cared for
• 9% of those who became cared for in the last six months were separated young people
• the average age of our cared for young people is between 10 and 15 years old
• 24 children and young people had been adopted in the last 6 months and 36 children and young people were waiting to be adopted
• 53% of our cared for children and young people identified as male
• 89% of our cared for children and young people identified as white British with 5% identifying as black or black British
• 8% of our cared for children were recorded as having a disability, and 107 (21.3%) had an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP)
• 48% of our cared for children and young people have a long-term plan of living in their foster family
• 233 of our cared for children and young people live in with Cumberland’s Foster carers
• nearly all of our cared for young people who live in their children’s home are cared for by private providers
• during the first three quarters of the financial year 31 children moved homes 3 or more times within the year, equating to 6.1% of all homes
• the largest age group of our care experienced young person is 17
• 62% of our care experienced young people are male

We stay in touch with 97% of our 16–17-year-old care experienced young people. Regionally there were 6035 cared for children in homes provided by the independent sector, this represents 40.4% of the total cared for children cohort for Local Authorities in the Placements Northwest Consortium as of December 2023. 2876 (47.7%) of these children are in foster homes, 1454 (24.1%) in residential homes and 1464 (24.3%) in supported accommodation and independent living. 

In England:

• The number of cared for children in England rose to 83,840 - up 2% - continuing the rise seen in recent years. This is a rate of 71 children cared for per 10,000 children - up from 70 last year.
• The numbers of children becoming cared for and ceasing to be cared for have both seen an increase with a 6% increase in those entering - to 33,000 - and 5% increase - to 31,680 in those ceasing to be cared for. 
• Many of the changes within the data can be explained by the large increase in separated children this year. The numbers of separated children have increased by 29%, following the 37% increase seen last year. Equally we have seen an increase in the number of separated young people which is current over 9% of our population of cared for young people.

Adoptions rose sharply from 2011 to a peak in 2015 nationally but have since in decline. It has been reported that this may be related to two court rulings in 2013, which stated that adoption orders should be made only when there was no other alternative, such as moving a child with birth relatives. Equally we have seen an increase in the number of young people who live with family members in a kinship arrangement, this is above the national average at present and continues to be one of our priority areas. 

Nationally, the number of cared for children who were adopted was 2,960. Last year there was a 4% increase following a large decrease of 17% during the pandemic, resulting from the impact on court proceedings meaning cases progressed more slowly or were paused. In Cumberland we saw the same trend. As we moved forward throughout 2024 we will focus more deeply on our summary needs assessment data informing our strategic plan and will review this annually in line with the overall sufficiency strategy.

Summary needs assessment 

Understanding and forecasting need, demand and supply is essential to the delivery of an effective sufficiency strategy, therefore we will use our data to help us deliver our plans. As well as using data from the CHAT, we will use: 

• national and local data such as Ofsted’s annual publication of national social care data and the Department for Education’s annual collection of cared for data to inform us of the characteristics of cared for, care experienced, separated young people, children in need of help and protection, and those in need of early help to help us identify emerging trends and changes in these populations
• data on the length of time cared for young people live in care, where they lived data on potential barriers to children and young people returning to family where it is safe to do so (for example, backlogs in family court hearings)
• data on stability, and benchmarking that compares actual data on where cared for, care experienced and separated young people live within the local authority, by population trends, economic trends or market opportunities