Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) approved families looking to adopt and (b) children ready for adoption there were in each of the last 30 years.

The department does not hold information centrally on the number of approved families that are looking to adopt.

The number of children looked after for whom the local authority has made the decision that they should be placed for adoption is published in the annual statistical release, available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions.

This information was first collected by the department in 2009, therefore data is available as at 31 March 2009 to 2024.

Information for the latest 5 years is published annually and can be found in categories 4a and 4c in the latest statistical release, available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/6f861ced-a334-42c1-5a17-08dd3479441b.

Figures for other years are contained in previous years’ releases, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.