Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish by ethnicity the number of children in England who attended Alternative Provision in (a) 2018-2019, (b) 2019-2020 and (c) 2020-21.

The department collects data on two types of alternative provision:

• Local authority maintained establishments providing alternative provision are often referred to as pupil referral units. There are also an increasing number of alternative provision academies and free schools and these are combined in our statistics. This data is collected through the school census.

• Data on local authority funded alternative provision is collected via the alternative provision census. This includes pupils attending establishments not maintained by a local authority for whom the authority is paying full tuition fees or educated otherwise under arrangements made (and funded) by the authority.

The department publishes the number of children by ethnicity attending pupil referral units (including academy and free school alternative provision) here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/aeafd962-176c-47de-881b-2db8c3f3b03a.

The department also publishes the number of children attending local authority funded alternative provision here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/5af932da-c31b-4a7d-9fee-682b14326651.