Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that the school census accurately records the number of young carers.

The children in need census collects information only on children who are referred to children’s social care services. Therefore, it does not provide a full count of young carers in England. However, where social workers have identified that being a young carer is a factor relevant to a child being in need of children’s social care services, information is collected. More information on the census is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/children-in-need-census.

To provide a more complete count of young carers in England, information on whether a pupil has been identified as a young carer will be collected for the first time in the 2023 spring school census. This new indicator was designed in consultation with representatives from the educational, voluntary and charitable sectors and accompanying guidance for schools has been provided on completing the census. The department is continuing to work closely with these sectors to promote usage of the new indicator from January 2023 and beyond.

Information on the cost and saving to the public purse from services provided by young carers is not held centrally. Data on local authority expenditure on family support services is collected via the Section 251 return and published in the annual local authority and school expenditure statistical release. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/section-251-2021-to-2022/section-251-outturn-guidance-2021-to-2022 and here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/la-and-school-expenditure.

Expenditure on young carers is not collected as a separate category.