Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of children receiving unregistered alternative education provision.

The information is not held centrally.

Data on alternative provision (AP) is collected by the Department in two ways. The school census collects details of those pupils in pupil referral units, AP academies and AP free schools. This provision is commissioned by local authorities and includes pupils who may be dual-registered with an AP provider and a mainstream school. The school census is a statutory requirement and is collected three times a year (termly, in October, January and May).

The AP census collects details on pupil placements in AP settings where a local authority is paying full tuition fees. This includes independent schools, further education colleges offering pre-16 provision and unregistered settings.

However, neither the school census nor the AP census collect details on pupils placed in unregistered settings funded directly by schools.