This release provides information on children looked after (CLA) in England, including numbers of CLA adopted, care leavers and CLA who were missing from their placement. Data is taken from the annual SSDA903 data collection which is collected from local authorities in England.

The latest statistics relate to the financial year ending 31 March 2023 and comparisons are to the year ending 31 March 2022 unless otherwise stated. Each year local authorities can revise previous years' data. The standard period for data in this release is for the year ending 31 March 2019 to the year ending 31 March 2023.

The complete set of national tables has been included on the accompanying CD-ROM.