Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have sufficient data on children over the age of 16 who are not in education or vocational training to enable targeted help to be made available to these so-called 'ghost children'.

Since 2010, the department has put in place a range of policies that have significantly reduced the quantity of young people designated as not in education, employment and training (NEET).

​Whilst the government provides the framework to increase participation and reduce the proportion of young people who are NEET, responsibility and accountability for delivery lies with local authorities, who have a statutory duty to identify and support all young people who are NEET.

Statutory guidance directs local authorities to collect information on all young people in their area, including whether they are NEET or have characteristics that put them at risk of becoming NEET, so that local authorities and their delivery service partners can effectively target and support those young people.

The department monitors NEET data and liaises with local authorities regarding their statutory duties to identify and support 16 and 17-year-olds. The department also publishes annual data from local authorities, including NEET comparative scorecards, that supports local authorities and their delivery services to monitor their own performance and benchmark it against that of others to promote improvements. The NEET comparative scorecards include information on local populations according to the Office of the National Statistics that can help local authorities evaluate whether young people are missing from their data and take further action. The NEET comparative scorecards are published at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/young-people-neet-comparative-data-scorecard.

The department also works with local authorities to support the better use of data tools to identify those at an increased risk of becoming NEET, based on characteristics such as having a learning difficulty or disability, or a record of poor school attendance, so they can be monitored and targeted with extra support to help them stay in education.

NEET young people are separate to children missing education, the latter being defined as compulsory school-aged children who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school. From autumn 2022, local authorities have been asked to voluntarily provide aggregate information to the department on children missing education. This information is being analysed, and we expect this data will help to significantly improve our understanding of the national level picture.