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.
| 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | |
| a. Any type of children’s social care placement | 1,064 | 1,106 | 1,079 |
| b. Foster care placements | 849 | 892 | 835 |
| c. Children’s home placements | 116 | 129 | 135 |
| d. Semi-supported placements | 109 | 88 | 93 |
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.
| Total | Fostering | Residential | Supported Accommodation | |
| £000 | £000 | £000 | £000 | |
| 2019/20 | £41,871 | £18,175 | £15,696 | £6,264 |
| 2020/21 | £43,915 | £18,849 | £17,414 | £5,821 |
| 2021/22 | £54,389 | £20,075 | £22,480 | £7,020 |
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.
Devon County Council believes compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. This is because the financial data is recorded in a format that does not distinguish between ‘in county’ and ‘out of county’ placements, so to extract the information we would have to examine each record individually. As can be seen from the response to question one, this would mean looking at over 1,000 records. Even if opening and interrogating each record took only five minutes, this would take well over 18 hours.
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.
Devon County Council believes compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate costs limit under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. This is because the financial data is recorded in a format that does not distinguish between ‘in county’ and ‘out of county’ placements, so to extract the information we would have to examine each record individually. As can be seen from the response to question one, this would mean looking at over 1,000 records. Even if opening and interrogating each record took only five minutes, this would take well over 18 hours.