Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the statistical release Information on looked-after children at both national and local authority levels for the financial year 2015-16, tables F1A and F1C, what information her Department holds on the circumstances of the 2,150 care leavers who, on 31 March 2016, were not in education, training or employment owing to pregnancy or parenting.

With regard to care leavers, the Department collects information about whether the local authority is in touch with the young person, their activity status, what type of accommodation they are in, and whether the accommodation is judged to be suitable.

Young people should be recorded by local authorities as “not in education, employment or training due to pregnancy or parenting” when they are not able to participate in any of these activities because of pregnancy or because they are parents or carers. The information should reflect the young persons’ main activity on or around their birthday in the latest year.

Information on the type of accommodation care leavers who, at 31 March, were not in education, training or employment due to pregnancy were in is shown in the table below.

Source: SSDA903

Of the 2,150 care leavers who, on 31 March 2016, were not in education, training or employment owing to pregnancy or parenting, 2,080 of these children were in accommodation considered suitable, a further 60 were in accommodation considered unsuitable and for 10 the accommodation suitability was not known. In terms of their contact with the local authority, 2,120 were in touch with the local authority[2]. A further 10 were not in touch and for 10 the young person no longer required services.

[1] Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10 and may not appear equal to the sum of their parts.

² Information is collected on whether the local authority is in contact with the care leaver up to one month before and 3 months after the young person’s birthday in the latest year. This figure may not appear equal to the grand total due to rounding and suppression of numbers from 1 to 5 which have not been shown.

x Figures not shown in order to protect confidentiality.