Care leaver data reporting extended to cover young people up to 25

Under current guidelines councils are only expected to include data for those aged 17 to 21 in reports to the DfE.

However, from April 2022, local authorities are expected to report the work and education activity and accommodation status of care leavers aged 22 to 25 who contact the council.

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A letter to local authorities, notifying them of the changes, seen by CYP Now, states: “You only need to provide information for 22- to 25-year-olds who have been in touch with you, we do not, for reporting purposes, expect you to contact all 22- to 25-year-old care leavers to obtain this information.”

It also notes that while data for 17- to 21-year-olds is collected around a young person’s birthday, information for those aged 22 to 25 should relate to the time they contact the council.

The DfE says the changes will allow better monitoring of young people aged over 21 who have taken up the offer of support from a personal advisor (PA) which was extended to benefit 22- to 25-year-olds in 2018.

"Currently data is only collected for care leavers aged between 17 to 21 years old so extending the collection in this way will allow the department to monitor the number of care leavers aged 22- to 25-year-olds who have taken up the offer of support or to collect data on their economic activity or accommodation status," the letter to local authorities states.

Campaigners who previously called on the Care Review and government to include older care leavers in data collection have welcomed the change.

In a letter to the Care Review ahead of the change, Terry Galloway, who recently launched Care Leaver Offer, a website which details care leaver support given by each local authority, and Dr Clare Baker, research and policy consultant for children and young people's services, wrote: "We do not know how older care leavers (aged over 21) are faring in terms of education and housing.

"For example, research evidence suggests that by the age of 23 around 12 per cent of care leavers are in higher education (in contrast to six per cent recorded at the age of 19-21).

"Overall, this absence of statistics makes it difficult for services for care leavers to be managed in a strategic way; planners at national and local levels simply do not have an overview of what is being provided and for whom. As a result it is difficult to evaluate the impact of the PA to 25 policy."

Galloway said of the changes: “Local authorities know their own children, they are doing a fantastic job, but if we are going to create systemic change in the care system, other organisations and government departments need the data so they can plan services that better meet the needs of our care leavers.” 

However, he added that the change should be extended further to cover those people that councils are no longer in touch with.

“This announcement really does prove that we can work together and find a common ground for the benefit of our care leavers - we need joint working and everyone to take part, a whole council, whole government, whole community approach," he said.

“The challenge now is to encourage all our care leavers to contact their local authorities because they do have a duty to support them to 25 and there is so much going on that they may not know about.”