irth that is taking place in many local areas might be contributing to this reduction in care placements for under ones. Evidence from research and from the ongoing work in specialist communities of practice underline how varied these responses are amongst local authorities (e.g. see Mason et al., 2022). Table 7: Children entering care by age group Source: SP9 respondents. The England numbers are extrapolated from 123 local authority responses based on proportion of England population. Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6 Phase 7 Phase 8 Phase 9 Change over time Change P8 to P9 2007– 08 2009– 10 2011– 12 2013– 14 2015– 16 2017– 18 2019– 20 2021– 22 2023– 24 Under 1 4,235 4,928 5,820 5,941 5,450 6,132 6,045 5,362 5,228 23% -2% 1-4 4,227 6,778 6,148 6,676 5,826 5,904 5,623 4,819 5,098 21% 6% 5-9 3,198 5,770 5,142 5,822 5,719 5,802 5,245 4,758 5,105 60% 7% 10-15 9,095 11,75 5 9,291 9,138 9,458 8,970 8,369 8,206 8,771 -4% 7% 16+ 2,250 5,222 4,287 4,689 6,407 6,081 6,507 8,195 10,15 3 351 % 24% 50 Figure 18: Children entering care by age group Source: SP9 respondents. The England numbers are extrapolated from 123 local authority responses based on the proportion of the England population. Please note that data labels have been added to highlight trends in the charts, but not all data labels are added due to limited space. Please refer to Table 7 above for all figures featured in this chart. 4.5 Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people (UAS) As at 31 March 2024, UAS children represented around 8.5% of children in care nationally and accounted for 17% of all children taken into care in the year 2023–24 (DfE, 2024e). These numbers represent a 370% increase in UAS children in care over the last 10 years, with a 29% increase between SP8 and SP9 (Table 9).