Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many children were known to youth offending services and have had (a) gangs or (b) child criminal exploitation noted as an issue in each of the last three years.

Between April 2017 and March 2020, Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) recorded 67,372 children (26,681 in 2017/18, 21,665 in 2018/19 and 19,026 in 2019/20) receiving a caution or court sentence. This does not include children YOTs worked with who were on bail or remand and did not subsequently receive a caution or court sentence, or children who have not received a pre-court or court disposal, such as community resolutions.

It is not currently possible to specify the proportion of those children who have gang or child criminal exploitation. Data-recording requirements were amended in 2019 and 2020 to collect this data; changes are being made to IT systems to allow this to be analysed and published in due course.