Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what percentage of children in care have been (a) cautioned, (b) charged and (c) come into contact with the criminal justice system each year for the last 10 years.

The department collects data on looked after children who have been looked after continuously for 12 months and who were convicted, or subject to, youth cautions or youth conditional cautions. Figures for the last 10 years are shown in the attached table.

Latest figures can be found in table I1 of the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England Including Adoption: 2017 to 2018’, which is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.

Similar information for looked after children who have not been looked after continuously for 12 months is not held centrally.

Information on whether a looked after child has any other contact with the criminal justice system is not held centrally.