Dataset details: CRDA/38/DS/1986

The dataset was received by NDAD from the Department of Health on one CD on 29 November 2000.

The data collected for each year is stored in two tables, the Child table and the Episode table. The Child table provides the local authority code, the child's ID code, the sex and the date of birth of each child and the number of care episodes relating to that child in the Episode table. The Episode table lists the child's ID code and the data for all the care episodes relevant to each child. To gather the information concerning the children in their care, local authorities used the SSDA 903 form, from which the CIC data is derived. The form was used to record essential information about each child - their sex and date of birth and all the care episodes relevant to each child. A care episode is defined as that period in which the child is continuously in the care of an individual local authority without a change of legal status of the child. It is believed that the prefix 'SSDA' was an acronym devised from the words 'Social Service Departments Activity'. To identify the children one 903 form was completed per child per statistical year. However local authorities did not provide unique child identification numbers and as a result individual child records cannot be linked from year to year, which means that this is not a longitudinal database. The original identifiers entered on each 903 form were known as 'sheet numbers'. These have since been deleted from the system, and unique child identifiers have been allocated by the system. However analysis of individual child histories across more than one year cannot be undertaken. Data is held for both England and Wales.

For further information on the contents of the dataset and its history, see the Series Catalogue.

The tables in this dataset were derived from the Microsoft Access Version 2.0 database, which was transferred to NDAD on 29 Nov 2000. This Access database was created by the Department of Health in 1991, and contained all the data for the statistical years 1977 to 1991, inclusive. The database consisted of two tables per statistical year, for example 1977_CHILD and 1977_EPISODE.

The Access database (CIC_data.mdb) was received on a single CD-ROM, and each table was converted into comma separated variable format, via Microsoft Access 97, in accordance with NDAD's standard Access conversion procedures. The Access database was received in Version 2.0 read-only format, and so it was necessary to update it to Access 97, for validation and conversion purposes. For further information on the validation of the data, see Content validation.

Access to the Children in Care dataset and its related documentation is open, with the exception of the Dob and LA fields in the 1986_CHILD table, which are to be closed until 2087.

The dataset consists of two tables. More detailed descriptions of these are available in the table catalogues including details of the fields they contain, from which registered users of NDAD may browse data in the dataset. The field names and original field descriptions included in the table catalogues were taken from the Annual Statistical Reports, see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/38/DD/1 for more information.

The dataset comprises the following table(s):

A number of checks were carried out on the content of the dataset. Again it is important to note here that it is not possible for researchers to reproduce the Official published annual statistics (see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/38/DD/1) because the data had not fully accrued at time of publication. The tables in the official publications were produced from forms SSDA 903 returned by various Local Authorities for children in care during the period from 1 April 1976 to 31 March 1977. Neither can researchers hope to reproduce the statistics in the later internal printed reports (NDAD do not hold these) as they contain data for the Local Authorities which are missing from the database itself. It seems the Department of Health used various estimated data for the Local Authorities which were missing from the final electronic database. We are unaware of where these estimates came from. For more information please read the section on 'Validation performed after transfer' in the Series Catalogue.

Most of the fields in the two data tables must conform to a limited range of values. Each field has undergone validation to ensure that all values are within the correct ranges. Any anomalies discovered in the original data are listed below:

1986_EPISODE table:

It is possible that code '31' is intended to represent children placed for adoption, since it is used as such in the 1987 dataset, and in all subsequent datasets. For further details on this code, refer to the 1987_EPISODE table catalogue, reference CRDA/38/DS/1987/2.

The converted data was checked against the original data transferred by the Department of Health. This was to ensure that the conversion process had not created anomalies in the data. The number of records and fields were compared and no inconsistencies were found. Since the data had been transferred to NDAD in an Access database, it was possible to carry out the same queries on the original and the transformed data. This checking was carried out on a random sample of fields within the two tables, and no discrepancies were found.