Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many vulnerable children are in (1) council, or (2) social care, facilities in England.

The department collects data on the number of children looked after in local authority care in England. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide appropriate accommodation for all children that are looked after. This data is collected on the annual SSD903 'children looked after by local authorities in England' statistical return, and the latest figures relate to the collection year ending 31 March 2021.

These figures on the number of children looked after by their placement type were published on the 18 November 2021 in Table A5 of the annual statistical release at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions. This is the first release of data covering the time period of the COVID-19 outbreak.