Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of children of secondary school age who were not attending school in Mid Cheshire constituency in the past five years had (a) previously been identified in the SEN Support category and (b) an education, health and care plan.

The requested information is not held centrally.

The department collects data on children missing education (compulsory school aged children not registered at school or otherwise receiving suitable education) from local authorities on a voluntary basis. The latest figures can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education.

The data are collected at aggregate level, so it is not possible to identify children missing education (CME) by both year group and special educational need (SEN) status. In autumn 2023/24 8% of all CME had an additional requirement of SEN support, while 6% of CME had an education, health and care plan. This compares with 13% and 4% respectively for the overall school population (in January 2023). CME data are not available at constituency level.

The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will legislate for local authority registers of children not in school. This will include a duty on parents to provide the necessary information for these registers if their child is eligible, which would improve the accuracy of data and ensure that fewer children slip under the radar when they are not in school.