New data gives clearer picture of kinship care in Scotland

The Scottish Government has published (29 July) new information about the number of children and young people being cared for in kinship care in Scotland which for the first time uses information from Scotland’s Census.

The figures from Scotland’s 2022 Census show that in March 2022, an estimated 12,800 children under the age of 18 were being cared for by their extended family. Approximately a third were ‘looked after’ by their local authority and lived with family members, and two thirds were either being cared for in private arrangement with extended family, with no local authority involvement, or under arrangements where the child’s care and protection was recognised under Section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, thereby transferring parental rights and responsibilities to family members where their parents were unable to care for them.

This estimated number is larger than the number children who were ‘looked after’ by their local authority and being cared for by family or friends which is published in the Children's Social Work Statistics for Scotland, published each year in April. While the information from the Census provides a clearer picture of the number of children being cared for in kinship care, data from the Census does not indicate how many children were being cared for by family friends. The new Census data also provides some of the demographic characteristics for children being cared for in kinship care and how this compares to children living in other families and households.

Read the statistical information

Read the Growing Up in Kinship Care report