Kinship Care Statistics
Statistics on children in kinship care using data from Scotland's Census 2022.
Correction
An error was identified in the calculation of rates of children in kinship care. These were incorrectly stated as rates per 10,000 children. The correct figures are rates per 1,000 children. This error occurred due to human error. The figures have been corrected on the Local Authority page of this webpage, and in the report and spreadsheets available to download.
Introduction
Kinship care is when a child under the age of 18 is looked after by their extended family or close friends if they cannot remain with their birth parents. This may be informal, where the child is in kinship care with no local authority involvement, or a formal placement where the child has been placed with kinship carers by the local authority. Under the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009, a kinship carer is defined as “a person who is related to the child (through blood, marriage or civil partnership) or a person with whom the child has a pre-existing relationship”.
The annual Scottish Government Looked After Children Statistics present the number of children who are in a formal kinship care placement, using data provided by local authorities. However, this does not include any information on informal kinship care arrangements.
A derived variable has been produced from the Scotland's Census 2022 to indicate children who may be living in kinship care. This includes children and young people (aged below 18 years old) who are not living with their parents (see background notes for full list of included relationships). This paper uses data from the Census to estimate the total number of children in kinship care. While this data includes children in both formal placements and informal kinship care, the two cannot be distinguished. However, it does not include children in kinship care living with family friends, as these cannot be distinguished from children living with people they are not related to for other reasons (e.g. foster carers). The paper also provides information on the socio-demographic characteristics of children in kinship care and how these compare with children who were not in kinship care (referred to as all others in households or those in other households).
An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland
These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.