Nearly one-fifth of looked-after children in Kirklees have been placed more than 20 miles from their home community.
And that is despite Government concerns over the practice.
Parliament’s education select committee urged a law change in 2014 that would have banned the practice - arguing that it put children at greater risk of falling through gaps in services and running away.
But ministers rejected the move - and placing children in homes and foster placements more than 20 miles away remains common practice, according to new figures.
The data, published by the Department for Education, shows that across England, 12,430 of the 69,540 children in council care are in ‘far away’ placements.
In Kirklees, some 120 of the 620 children for which the council is responsible were in placements at least 20 miles from their home community as of March 31 this year.
That is a total of 19.4 per cent.
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Cumbria has the highest (50.7 per cent), followed by Rutland (42.9 per cent) and Cambridgeshire (41.5 per cent).
All, however, are rural communities with large distances between settlements.
Sefton in the north west had the lowest rate (5.6 per cent), followed by Gateshead (5.9 per cent) and Wigan (5.9 per cent).
The figures were released as part of a package of data on looked-after children.
They are rounded to the nearest five in order to protect the identity of individuals where very small numbers are involved.
Meanwhile, Kirklees Council have ramped up their spending on keeping vulnerable children safe by more than £1.m last year in the wake of a string of national grooming scandals.
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Expenditure on so-called ‘safeguarding’ services rose from £14.3m in 2013-14 to £15.9m in 2014-15.
That is a rise of 11.7 per cent.
Councils - particularly those in the north - have faced huge cuts since since the then-coalition came to power in 2010.
But a string of grooming scandals in places like Rochdale, Oxford and Rotherham have seen safeguarding budgets protected and even expanded.
