Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications for children to be received into secure children’s homes were made in each year since 2010.

A breakdown of the number of referrals relating to welfare placements per year received since the Secure Welfare Coordination Unit (SWCU) was created has been provided below. The SWCU is a small unit grant funded by the department for the purposes of administering placements and collecting data on secure welfare, created in 2016.

• 2021: 419 referrals
• 2020: 420 referrals
• 2019: 492 referrals
• 2018: 471 referrals
• June 2016 - May 2017: 569 referrals

This data relates to secure welfare placements only. An annual breakdown of the number of new admissions into secure for children sentenced or remanded by a criminal court has been included in attached table.