Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Education, whether his Department collects data from local authorities on the number of (a) trafficked and (b) at risk children in their care.

The latest information on episodes of need where trafficking was identified as a factor at the end of assessment is included in the department’s ‘Characteristics of children in need: 2018 to 2019’ statistical publication, available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need-2018-to-2019.

Table C3 of this publication shows that, at a national level, trafficking was identified as a factor at the end of assessment in 2,490 (0.5%) of the 498,870 episodes with assessment factor information in the year ending 31 March 2019.

Information on looked-after children is collected from local authorities in the annual looked-after children census, but does not include information on whether the child is specifically considered to be at risk of being trafficked.

The latest information on looked-after children is published in the ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2018 to 2019’ statistical release, available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2018-to-2019.