Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many young people Southampton City Council supports for child services.

I am sorry, but we do not collect data on the total number of children local authorities support through children’s services departments. We do publish data on numbers of ‘children in need’ in each local authority area.

A child in need is defined under the Children Act 1989 as “a child who is unlikely to reach or maintain a satisfactory level of health or development, or their health or development will be significantly impaired, without the provision of services, or the child is disabled.”

The number of children in need at 31 March 2016, for Southampton City Council was 3,444.

This information is publically available in table B1 of the “Characteristics of children in Need 2016-17” main tables, which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need-2015-to-2016.