Categorising demand for child welfare services using latent class analysis: a study of the national data-sets on children in need in England

In England, administrative data on children’s needs are recorded following a social work assessment. These data are typically used to understand prevalence of individual risk factors and to inform processes, such as the work of local safeguarding partners and multi-agency services. However, reporting individual factors at assessment cannot capture the complexity and heterogeneity of multiple and overlapping needs. This study aimed to identify common types of demand, via a limited number of clusters, using the factors recorded in a national data-set of over 4.2 million assessments carried out between 2014 and 2021, of which 3.6 million had at least one factor recorded. Latent class analysis was used to identify twelve distinct categories of demand for children’s social care services, which were consistent across local authorities. Conditional probabilities were used to interpret the demand represented by each category, in consultation with stakeholders. The most prevalent category was domestic abuse and violence (19.7 per cent), followed by complexities around parental mental health (18.4 per cent). Other categories included disability, child mental health, risks outside the home, complex domestic abuse and concerns about another person in the family or household. This article examines some of the operational and planning implications of categorising demand in this way.