The ethnicity of foster carers has received relatively little attention but is important as:
Data from Ofsted's annual survey of fostering agencies are used here to map the ethnic profiles of foster carers with those of both looked-after children and local adult (aged 25-64) populations. More than 70 inspection reports for fostering services in England are analysed to gauge how authority performance is assessed in this regard.
Foster carer and care population
There are relative shortfalls of foster carers for most groups (particularly those of mixed backgrounds) with the exceptions of white British, Indian, Pakistani and black Caribbean backgrounds.
The number of white British children in care is 49,910 compared to 55,068 white British local authority foster carers. The corresponding BME figures are 16,710 and 10,966. There are particularly low Indian and black Caribbean looked-after children populations compared to their respective foster carer populations. By contrast, Bangladeshi, black African, Chinese and mixed race children in care populations were between 1.4 and seven times higher than that of available foster carers of the same ethnicities. Variations were dramatic at the authority level.
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