Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of looked-after children have gone missing from placements in (a) England and (b) the North West for each year for which information is available since he publication of the Children's Home Data Pack in 2014.

This information is published as experimental statistics in the statistical first release Children looked after in England including adoption which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-looked-after-children.

The number and percentage of looked after children who went missing from their placement in the year ending 31 March by region can be found in the 2014-2015 release at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2014-to-2015 and the 2015-2016 release at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2015-to-2016 in Table LAG1. The department does not distinguish between children who were missing from their placement and those who were absent from their placement. This information was collected for the first time in 2015 and so comparisons between years should be treated with caution.