Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to release publicly accessible data on deaths of care-leavers in addition to deaths of children in care already published.

The latest figures on the number of deaths of care leavers were published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions-methodology#content-section-4-content-11. The table shows rounded data between 2019 and 2021 for care leavers who have died aged between 17 and 21. A young person will be recorded in more than one year, for example, if a young person died in the year they turned 20, then they will also be reported in the figures the following year for those aged 21.

The department is considering a revision to the statutory ‘Working together to safeguard children (2018)’ guidance as part of the detailed and ambitious implementation strategy that will be published later this year in response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, national review into the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson and the Competition and Markets Authority study. The guidance currently places a duty on local authorities to notify the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel when a child dies or is seriously harmed, and neglect or abuse is known or suspected. In addition, local authorities are also required to notify the department and Ofsted of the death of a looked after child, regardless of neglect or abuse being known or suspected. The department will consider whether to revise the requirement on local authorities to include the notification of the death of a care leaver as part of this consultation process.