Children in poorest postcodes '10 times more likely to end up in care'

Research conducted by seven British universities found that in all four nations of the UK children are over-represented in the most deprived 20 per cent of neighbourhoods.

Contrasting life chances were most apparent at the far ends of the spectrum, with children in the most deprived 10 per cent of neighbourhoods in the UK at least 10 times more likely to be in care than children in the least deprived 10 per cent.

This is based on around one in 60 children being in care in England's most deprived neighbourhoods, compared with one in 660 in the least deprived areas.

Researchers found ‘strong social gradients' in the rates of intervention across the four countries, with each step increase in neighbourhood deprivation bringing a significant rise in the proportion of children either in the care of the local authority, or on a child protection plan.
 
Academics from the universities of Coventry, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Stirling and Queen's University Belfast were funded by the Nuffield Foundation to investigate data on over 35,000 children who are either looked-after children or on child protection plans - more than 10 per cent of all such cases open in March 2015, when the study began.
 
The study, known as the Child Welfare Inequalities Project, found that across the UK, each step increase in deprivation brings with it a rise of around a third in a child's chances of being in care.