Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of trends in the number of looked-after children in the London Borough of Barnet.

The latest information on the number of looked after children at 31 March 2023 for the last five years by local authority, region and for England can be found in table LAA1 in the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England: Including Adoption: 2022 to 2023’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2022-to-2023.

Additional information on the numbers of looked after children can be found in the local authority interactive tool on GOV.UK. This shows rates of children looked after in Barnet are consistently below those of comparator areas and have remained broadly static in rate per 10,000.