Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to publish an update to its transparency data, Looked after children in independent or semi-independent placements.

The transparency data ‘Looked after children in independent or semi-independent placements’ was initially published on 12 February 2020, alongside independent research commissioned by the department into the use of unregulated and unregistered provision for children in care. The documents can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/864075/Looked_after_children_in_independent_or_semi-independent_placements_Feb_2020.pdf and here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-unregulated-and-unregistered-provision-for-children-in-care.

These publications provided important context to the government consultation ‘Reforms to unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers’ which was published on the same date, and asked for views on proposals to reform the use of this provision. This publication is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/unregulated-provision-for-children-in-care-and-care-leavers. This transparency data was an ad-hoc release and, as confirmed in the report, will not be produced annually.

The department published a further suite of transparency data on 19 February 2021, available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/960067/Looked_after_children_aged_under_16_in_unregulated_placements.pdf. This provided details on the use of independent and semi-independent accommodation specifically for children under the age of 16 and was published to assist local authorities to prepare for a ban on the placement of under 16s in these placements from 9 September 2021. This was also an ad-hoc release and, as confirmed in the report, will not be produced annually.

The looked after children in independent and semi-independent settings data that is published annually by the department is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2020.