Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of children and young people who are outside of the mainstream education system and are in receipt of statutory services who are (a) engaging with and (b) not engaging with those services.

Those children who are in receipt of statutory services are likely to be classified in the data as either children in need, and in receipt of social care services, or as having special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), and in receipt of extra educational support, plus potentially health and social care. Those children outside of mainstream education would either be in alternative provision, a special school or home-educated.

As at 31 March 2020, the number of single and dual-main registered pupils characterised as children in need (including looked-after children) in state place-funded alternative provision was 4,220. There were also 31,390 pupils characterised as children in need in state funded special schools. This data is available at https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/2ea0be8f-d78e-4c39-a0cc-7e936005de3f.

As at January 2021, the number of single and dual-main registered pupils characterised as having special educational needs in state place-funded Alternative provision was 10,575. There were also 132,306 pupils in state-funded special schools. This data is available at https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/4b1484d8-bfa3-4ce5-a556-4526f131e642.

The department does not hold data on how many of these pupils are engaging with those statutory children’s services.

The department does not collect data on the number of children and young people educated otherwise than at a school; this data is held by local authorities. We remain committed to a registration system for children not in school. Further details on a proposed registration system will be in the government response to the children not in school consultation, which we intend to publish in the coming months.