Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department's review on the educational outcomes of children in need of help or support aged 16 and 17 will consider any other outcomes where the support those children have received may cause an effect.

On 16 March 2018, the government published data and analysis as part of the Department for Education’s Children in Need Review. This included the finding that Children in Need have worse educational outcomes than their peers from the early years, make less progress throughout school, and are more likely than other children to become a young adult who is Not in Education, Employment or Training three years after completing Key Stage 4.

The scope of the review is focussed on educational outcomes, and we have no plans to extend this. However, we recognise that the factors affecting these children and young people’s educational outcomes, such as the support they receive, may also lead to other poorer outcomes. That is why our data publication sets out our intention to understand the lifetime outcomes of Children in Need, including exploring the feasibility of matching the Department for Education’s Children in Need data with data from other government departments.

Children’s social care and schools have a central role in supporting Children in Need. It is therefore important for us to focus the review on what we can do now whilst making progress and working across government to understand more about other outcomes over the longer-term.