Five years ago the Children Looked After exercise was launched, comparing the unit costs for children in residential and foster care. Since then the exercise has developed to provide detailed comparisons over a wide range of children's social care areas.

The questionnaire and reports cover:

• Costs comparisons: unit costs, profiles, comparison to population
• Client analysis: by age, type of care, and recent trends
• A wide range of other process and quality comparisons, e.g. national indicators, OFSTED ratings, analysis of overheads.

Members can then send up to two delegates to our review meetings to get behind the figures, discuss current issues with their peers and identify changes that will help service delivery in their own authority.

For further information, please contact Aidan Rawlinson, Benchmarking Developer on 0208 667 8569 or aidan.rawlinson@cipfa.org.uk.