Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data his Department holds on the number of children missing from education in (a) England and (b) by local authority area; and what steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of data held on such children.

It is the responsibility of local authorities (LA) to make arrangements to establish, as far as possible, the identities of children of compulsory school age in their area who are not registered as pupils at a school and who are not otherwise receiving suitable education.

In September 2016, the Department amended the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, to include further duties on schools to improve the information they provide to LAs when a child is removed from their roll, to help LAs to carry out these duties. We have a commitment to review the impact of these amendments by September 2019.

Further information can be found in the statutory guidance on Children Missing Education: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-missing-education.