I submit the following request for information under the Freedom of Information legislation regarding placements of Looked After Children where your local authority has corporate parenting responsibilities.

1. For each of the previous three years – 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 – how many Looked After Children, for whom your local authority has corporate parenting responsibilities, were placed within and outside of the local authority area in:
a) Any type of children’s social care placement
b) Foster care placements
c) Children’s home placements
d) Semi-supported placements
We are unable to answer this question as this would exceed the appropriate limit. We would need to manually go through each child’s records to check their legal status to answer the question and also the address to see if they are inside LA/Outside LA. There are 869 placements to check over 3 year period. Assuming each takes 10 minutes this would take 144 hours.

2. For each of the three previous years – 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 – what was the total combined cost to your local authority of:
a) All children’s social care placements
b) All foster care placements
c) All children’s home placements
d) All semi-supported placements
We are unable to answer this question as this would exceed the appropriate limit, we would need to manually check records for approx. 200 looked after children each year to see if their placement address is inside or outside the LA, in order to calculate total costs. Assuming each address check took 5 minutes this would take 30 hours of work for approx 600 placements over the 3 year period.

3. For each of the three previous years – 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 – what was the total combined cost to your local authority of placements within the local authority area of:
a) All children’s social care placements
b) All foster care placements
c) All children’s home placements
d) All semi-supported placements
We are unable to answer this question as this would exceed the appropriate limit, we would need to manually check records for approx. 200 looked after children each year to see if their placement address is inside or outside the LA, in order to calculate total costs. Assuming each address check took 5 minutes this would take 30 hours of work for approx 600 placements over the 3 year period.

4. For each of the three previous years – 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 – what was the total combined cost to your local authority of placements outside of the local authority area of:
a) All children’s social care placements
b) All foster care placements
c) All children’s home placements
d) All semi-supported placements
We are unable to answer this question as this would exceed the appropriate limit, we would need to manually check records for approx. 200 looked after children each year to see if their placement address is inside or outside the LA, in order to calculate total costs. Assuming each address check took 5 minutes this would take 30 hours of work for approx 600 placements over the 3 year period.