Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many young people are or have been in care were unemployed (a) nationally and (b) in London in each of the last five years.

I am sorry, but the department does not collect data on young people who are in care and who are unemployed.

For care leavers, the department collects information on their activity on or around their birthday, which includes whether they were not in education, training or employment.

Due to changes in the cohort for whom data was collected, figures for 19 to 21 year olds are available from the year ending 31 March 2014. Information on care leavers aged 17 and 18 years old was collected for the first time for the year ending 31 March 2016 and is published as experimental statistics.

Figures are provided in the table below.

Number of care leavers aged 19 to 21 years old who were not in education, training or employment^{1, 2}

Years ending 31 March 2014 to 2017

Source: SSDA903

1. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.
2. Care leavers are defined as children who had been looked after for at least 13 weeks which began after they reached the age of 14 and ended after they reached the age of 16. Figures exclude children who were looked after under an agreed series of short term placements, those who have died since leaving care, those who have returned home to parents or someone with parental responsibility for a continuous period of at least 6 months and those whose care was transferred to another local authority.

Experimental statistics

Number of care leavers aged 17 and 18 years old who were not in education, training or employment^{1, 2, 3}

Years ending 31 March 2016 and 2017

Source: SSDA903

1. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.
2. Figures are experimental statistics to reflect we believe information was not reported for around 11% of 18 year old care leavers in 2016, the first year. Users should be cautious interpreting these figures.

3. Figures exclude children who were looked after under an agreed series of short term placements, those who have died since leaving care, those who have returned home to parents or someone with parental responsibility for a continuous period of at least 6 months and those whose care was transferred to another local authority.