Official Statistics

Methodology: ownership of children’s social care providers in England 2025

Published 27 November 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

This paper contains methodology and quality information relevant to the official statistics release of Ownership of children’s social care providers in England 2025. We publish these statistics once a year.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should follow. You are welcome to contact us directly at socialcaredata@ofsted.gov.uk with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

This methodology document supports the official statistics in development release on ownership of children’s social care in England. These statistics aim to provide greater transparency and insight into the companies and organisations that own and operate providers of children’s homes, independent fostering agencies (IFAs) and supported accommodation.

These statistics are currently classified as official statistics in development, meaning they are undergoing development and are published to get user feedback. They have been produced in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value. If you have any feedback on this publication, contact socialcaredata@ofsted.gov.uk.

This is the first release of this publication as official statistics in development. We have previously published similar data on the largest national providers of private and voluntary social care. Going forward, we plan to release this publication annually.

We publish a number of official statistics covering children’s social care, including fostering, adoption and children looked after placements.

Largest owners

We have defined the largest owners as those that make up the top 25% of each provision type. Therefore, the number of largest owners varies across children’s homes, IFAs and supported accommodation. This also means that, in future releases, the number of owners that make up the top 25% of each provision type might change.

For all provision types, the top 25% of owners were identified by calculating the relevant measure for each owner (number of providers for children’s homes, number of places for IFAs, and number of open or pending premises for supported accommodation) and ranking them. From these ranked lists, the top quarter of providers was selected, and cumulative frequency was used to determine how many owners this represented.

Occasionally, in the ranked lists of owners of children’s homes and of supported accommodation, we found that different owners own an identical number of settings. In such cases, we have ranked the owners according to the number of places that they own. The owner with the larger number of places is ranked higher on the list.

Ofsted data

The providers and places data includes children’s social care that Ofsted regulates and inspects. In terms of the periods covered by the release, providers and places data always reflects the situation on 31 March.

To link to Companies House data, Ofsted data on ‘responsible body’ is used. The responsible body is the organisation, group or individual ultimately accountable for the overall governance, performance and conduct of a social care provider.

When calculating the number of organisations associated with each owner, we have tried to standardise and clean organisation names. We have done this to minimise the risk of double-counting where names were recorded with minor variations (for example, differences in punctuation, abbreviations or spelling).

Children’s homes

Children’s homes can be registered under 3 subtypes: children’s homes, residential special schools (registered as children’s homes) and secure children’s homes. For the purpose of these statistics, references to children’s homes include all 3 subtypes.

The provider and places data used for this release is data that belongs to Ofsted. It is administrative data extracted directly from our internal database system, Cygnum. The data is subject to a rigorous internal quality assurance (QA) process. This QA happens as both part of our internal processes for ensuring data quality in regulatory records and part of the production of this official statistics in development.

The data on places comes from conditions of registration. Registration conditions form part of the inspection and so are subject to the same rigorous QA processes as inspection reports.

Independent fostering agencies

Data on the number of places provided by each IFA comes from Ofsted’s annual fostering data collection.

When determining the size of companies, we chose to use the number of IFA places offered by each company, rather than the number of IFAs that it owns. This best captures the reach of a company in terms of how many children it could offer care to. We calculated the total number of places a company offers as the sum of all places offered by all IFAs within its ownership chain. For example, if a company has 4 IFAs in its ownership chain, and each of these offered 25 places, the total places offered by the company is 100.

IFAs that are trusts also provide formal kinship care (family and friends) placements, which non-trust IFAs do not offer. These placements have been included in the places count for this publication and may therefore differ slightly from the underlying data for the mainstream places total in our Fostering in England official statistics.

Ofsted’s annual fostering data collection is carried out on a voluntary basis. Consequently, response rates may vary; however, they are typically close to 100% for all eligible agencies. As participation is not mandated, some agencies choose not to provide data, while others may be unable to do so due to pending closure or because they are newly registered. Where data has not been submitted, the places field in the dataset is shown as ‘..’.

IFA data is rounded to the nearest 5, in line with our Fostering in England official statistics.

Supported accommodation

We report on the number and capacity of supported accommodation premises based on the status of the provider and the premises as follows:

Data for active or suspended supported accommodation providers includes all premises with an open or pending status as at 31 March.

Companies House

We extracted the ownership data for this release from the ‘Get information about a company’ tool on Companies House. The information on Companies House is provided by companies themselves, and neither Companies House nor Ofsted verify its accuracy. The company names used throughout this release are presented as retrieved from Companies House. If a company is better known by another name, the commonly recognised name appears in brackets.

Methodology

To identify the owners using the Ofsted and Companies House data, we first compile a list of responsible bodies as at 31 March for the relevant year.

For each responsible body, we search the Companies House ‘Get information about a company’ tool to find companies with the name closest to the responsible body name. We then filter out any companies that have been dissolved, and select the closest matching active company.

We then retrieve a list of persons with significant control (PSC) associated with the matched company. From this list, we identify those that are still operating. We use the following criteria to sift them further:

• we only consider corporate PSCs, not individuals
• we only consider PSCs who hold more than 50% shares or more than 50% of the voting rights in the company

Where there are 2 ‘valid’ PSCs for a company, we select the record with the most recent ‘notified on’ date.

Once we have compiled this secondary list, we repeat the process for each new valid PSC company as many times as necessary to reach the top-level owner; that is, until we find no further PSCs that meet the criteria.

Voluntary trusts delivering services on behalf of local authorities are shown as trust-owned. Where the responsible body could not be identified in Companies House, we used the data reported to Ofsted.

Due diligence

We have contacted the largest owners to confirm that their company name and linked organisation details are correct. They were given a deadline to respond to confirm they were satisfied with the ownership chains we have in place.

Where discrepancies in Companies House records are made known, we take action to reflect the most up-to-date information in the publication. This includes amending company names and creating links between companies. Where owners have informed us that they own additional provision, we have reflected this in the data by updating their ownership chain.

Strengths

• Linking Ofsted and Companies House data allows for a clearer view of ownership structures, providing an important snapshot of the sector.
• The linkage can inform regulatory bodies and policymakers about market dynamics and risk.

Limitations

• Companies House data is self-reported by companies and not independently verified. This may lead to inaccuracies in ownership, directorship or financial information.
• Some providers operate through international corporate structures, which we cannot trace using Companies House data alone.
• Linking Ofsted and Companies House records may involve fuzzy matching (for example by name or address), which can introduce errors or omissions.

Applying the Code of Practice

This section is broken down by the 3 core principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics:

• trustworthiness
• quality
• value

Trustworthiness

Data is presented and used objectively, with no political or commercial influence. The ownership of children’s social care providers in England is published as official statistics in development to demonstrate transparency and invite feedback from users.

We share our methods, including how we link Ofsted and Companies House data. We also acknowledge limitations, such as the self-reported nature of company records and the potential constraints of fuzzy matching.

To reduce the risk of misrepresentation, we contact owners to confirm that company names and linked organisations were correct.

Our internal QA processes, secure data handling and open communication channels further demonstrate our commitment to integrity and responsible data management.

Quality

QA is applied throughout the production of these statistics. Ofsted data is sourced from regulated administrative systems, such as Cygnum and the annual fostering data collection, and is subject to internal validation and review. For example, data on places in children’s homes and supported accommodation is drawn from registration conditions, which are quality assured as part of the inspection process.

A reproducible and transparent method is used to link Ofsted data with Companies House records, applying consistent criteria and documenting each step. While we acknowledge limitations in provider-level QA and in the self-reported nature of Companies House data, we mitigate these through due diligence, and communicate to the user any risks to interpretation.

We also round IFA data in line with our established statistical practices to protect confidentiality and support consistent reporting.

Our methods are reviewed and refined over time, and we welcome feedback to support continuous improvement.

Value

This release provides new insight into ownership structures in children’s social care, supporting transparency, market oversight and informed decision-making.

We selected metrics that reflect the scale and reach of providers, such as the number of places offered, to ensure relevance to users across inspection, policy and research.

The methodology is clearly explained, and the data is published in accessible formats on GOV.UK, with supporting guidance and a glossary to aid interpretation.

We welcome feedback and have published this as official statistics in development to encourage user engagement and continuous improvement.

Glossary

Definitions of terms are in our statistics glossary.

Contact us

We welcome feedback on our statistical releases. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about the data, or its presentation or interpretation, please contact the Social Care Data Analysis Team.