The government has revealed that 450 of the UK’s most vulnerable children have died in care over the last decade, including 50 that were housed in controversial unregulated accommodation.
Figures released to The Times through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests show that 400 “looked after” under-18s died in regulated care placements between 2011 and 2021 — a figure that amounts to 130 deaths per 100,000 children in care.
That is more than 16 times higher than the overall UK child mortality figure produced by the Office for National Statistics in 2021. Those numbers reveal eight deaths per 100,000 children nationally, although that only measured the deaths of those aged between one and 15.
Some 306,620 children had been in care between 2011 and 2021.
The
