It includes data relating to all children who ceased to be looked after during a collection year if they were aged 16 years or older at the time of care ending. Only the last occasion that care ceased is included. However, there is information about the reason for the episode ceasing and a description about the suitability of their final placement.
Within SAIL, this dataset must be linked to the primary Children Looked After census (LACW) to get child characteristics (week of birth, gender, ALF).
| Data Owner | Welsh Government |
| Earliest Data | 1st April 2016 |
| Frequency of Updates | Annual |
| Lag in Updates Becoming Available | Approx 4 months after the local authority returns have been completed and verified |
Meta Data
| ADR UK Catalogue | https://datacatalogue.adruk.org/browser/dataset?id=5462644471927188424&origin=3 |
| Health Data Gateway | https://web.www.healthdatagateway.org/dataset/cfdafacb-48f0-4ad8-9f20-193a5eec2da4 |
| Data Resource | Allnatt, G., Lee, A., Scourfield, J., Elliott, M., Broadhurst, K. and Griffiths, L.. (2022) “Data resource profile: children looked after administrative records in Wales”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 7(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v7i1.1752. |
| Data Insight | Allnatt, G., Elliott, M., Cowley, L., Lee, A., North, L., Broadhurst, K., and Griffiths, L. (2023) Data Explained: Children Looked After Datasets. Available from: https://adrwales.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Data-Explained-CLA-datasets_final.pdf |
| Other useful publications | Allnatt, G., Elliott, M., Scourfield, J., Lee, A., Griffiths, L (2022) Use of Looked Administrative Children’s Social Care Data for Research: A scoping Review of Existing UK Studies British Journal of Social Work 00, p.p. 1-22. |
Other useful information
Local Authority Guidance:
Due to the anonymization process, not all data fields referred to in the local authority guidance are available for use by researchers. However, this resource provides a useful starting point for understanding what is collected and the legal framework that sits behind some of the codes used.
Aggregate data going back to 2016-17 is available on the Stats Wales website: https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Health-and-Social-Care/Social-Services/Childrens-Services/Children-Looked-After/Care-Leavers-Aged-16-and-Over
There are approximately 650 – 700 records per year.
There is some reporting of the data in the Welsh Government’s annual statistical release about children looked after by Welsh local authorities. The latest version can be found: https://www.gov.wales/children-looked-after-local-authorities-april-2021-march-2022-html#109874
