The Regional Demand Modelling tool is used by analysts and commissioners to forecast the demand for placements for looked after children. It analyses the historical data from SSDA903 return files looking at the flow of children between placement types (e.g. from a fostering to a residential care placement or into or out of care).
This is not a predictive model; it generates hypothetical scenarios based off model adjustments. It also has functionality to support analysts and commissioners to filter and bring more reality into the forecast by generating scenarios. This enables the user to hypothesise about potential changes in the future which could increase or decrease placement flows.