This paper aims to test whether public administrative data can identify local-authority variation in care-leaver transition risk in England and provide a practical audit framework for children’s services.
Department for Education care-leaver data for 2023–2025 are used to construct a four-indicator core transition-risk score covering NEET among those with known activity, unsuitable accommodation at ages 22–25 and 17–21, and homelessness/emergency/B&B accommodation at ages 17–21. Contact visibility, measured by the percentage aged 22–25 not in touch, is kept separate. The 2025 core/contact audit uses a complete-case sample of 138 local authorities.
At the 75th percentile threshold, 29 authorities had high core risk only, 29 had high contact-visibility risk only and six had both. Among 35 high-core-risk authorities, 22 were accommodation-led. In the same 138-authority complete-case sample, the final core-risk score showed only a weak association with overall area deprivation (Pearson r = 0.196; R-squared = 0.038).
The study uses aggregate public administrative data and cannot make individual-level or causal claims. It does not include lived-experience evidence from care leavers. The audit should therefore be treated as a screening and monitoring tool that identifies local patterns for further investigation, not as a definitive assessment of service quality.
The audit identifies service-response profiles rather than punitive rankings: accommodation-led areas require housing pathway work, NEET-led areas require education and employment support, homelessness-led areas require crisis-pathway review and contact-gap areas require improved engagement and recording visibility.
The study highlights that care-leaver transition inequality is not fully captured by general deprivation measures. It shows that some local areas may face specific accommodation, employment or service-visibility pressures even where broader deprivation indicators are modest. Better public-data monitoring can support earlier, fairer and more targeted help for care leavers.
The paper separates known transition outcomes from contact visibility and adds robustness checks for indicator removal and normalisation choice.
