Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have gone missing from (a) local authority and (b) foster care in each month in each of the last 10 years.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only

The department takes the issue of any child going missing, either from home or from local authority care, extremely seriously. Local authorities are legally responsible for protecting all children, regardless of where they go missing from.

When a child is found, they must be offered an independent return interview and local authorities, police, and voluntary services should work together to build a comprehensive picture of why the child went missing and to understand what support they may need in the future to prevent them from going missing again.

The latest available information on children missing from care relates to the year ending 31 March 2022 and is available in the ‘Children looked after in England (including adoption): 2021 to 2022’ statistical release, at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d3f7d671-6341-4294-fa64-08db73cb8f1d. This data has been collected since 2014/15. The vast majority (90%) of missing incidents for all looked after children last for two days or less.