Children in Care

(asked on 8th May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data his Department holds on the number of children of offenders currently in the care system.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 14th May 2019

​The department does not collect information specifically on the number of children of offenders taken into care and the costs associated with this.

Information is collected on the main category of need for which a child is looked-after, including low income, family in acute stress or family dysfunction, but within those categories offending by a parent is not identified separately as a reason for a child to be looked-after. The main category of need is dependent on an individual child’s circumstances; not solely a shared characteristic of parental offending. Children who are in need simply because a parent has been imprisoned but the reason for imprisonment bears no relation to the child being in need can be included as in need under the category of absent parenting.

The cost of support and care placements varies across individual children. Local authorities are required to submit their spending on children in care to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, which is published annually. We also publish information on the average weekly unit costs of looked after children, by local authority, in the Local Authority Interactive Tool.

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