More than 100 children in care with Herts County Council had more than one placement

The data was presented to a meeting of the council’s children, families and young people cabinet panel on Tuesday.

It showed that there were 1,028 children and young people in the care of the local authority at the end of December, including 150 separated migrant children.

And of those 1,028, there were 126 – that’s 12.3 per cent – who had had three or more placements in the previous 12 months.

Presenting that data, senior performance and development manager Paul Dryden suggested that it was those children and young people who were new to care who were more likely to have experienced multiple moves, rather than those who have been there for a year or more.

And he pointed to the need to find the right placement for the child and to the ‘sufficiency’ of placements, highlighting a national shortage of foster carers in particular.

He also reported that since the end of the year the proportion of looked after children to have had three or more placements had dropped to 12.1 per cent.

And he said that, with work being put in place to improve placement stability, the council’s performance relative to others was expected to improve.

Director of children and families El Mayhew also highlighted the council’s work to increase residential provision and to support foster carers, in order to address placement ‘sufficiency’.

And she highlighted the work the council was undertaking in order to ensure children can stay in their own families, without the need to come into the care system.

She also suggested that for some children – including those who may be placed for adoption – it would be very difficult to reduce the number of placements to less than three.

And Liberal Democrat Councillor Steve Jarvis accepted that for some children having more than three placements may be the right solution.

According to the data presented to the cabinet panel, at the end of December (2024) Hertfordshire had 1028 looked after children, including 150 separated migrant children.

That’s 63 more looked after children compared to December 2023 – when the data shows there were 965 looked-after children, including 149 separated migrant children.

According to the data, 70.4 per cent of those who had been in care for more than two-and-a-half years had been in the same placement for the past two years or longer.

The data also shows that the proportion of children leaving care through adoption or through the issue of a special guardianship order (SGO) decreased last year.

According to the data, 7.1 per cent of children or young people left care through adoption in 2024 – compared to 13.5 per cent in 2023.

And 6.8 per cent of children or young people left care through an SGO in 2024- compared to 7.9 per cent in 2023.

An SGO is a court order that appoints one or more individual to be a child’s special guardian until they are 18.