To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what processes his Department has in place to record the outcomes of placements of looked after children from England who are placed in (a) other nations of the UK and (b) overseas.
Answered on
6 September 2021
Where the local authorities are placing a young person out of area, there are clear statutory requirements in place to safeguard young people. These require the placing authority to inform the host authority before confirming the placement and to check whether the host authority is aware of any concerns about the setting. The statutory responsibilities for looked after children remain with the placing local authority and Directors of Children’s Services who must approve all distant placements.
Statistically, the department collects data on placement type, reason for placement change and three separate pieces of information in relation to the locality of placements. The location data includes:
- information about the distance the child is placed away from their home postcode
- whether the placement is located inside or outside their responsible local authority
- the country of the placement (England, UK or otherwise).
Figures on placements, distance from the home placement and the location of the placement, inside or outside the council boundary, were published in the underlying data ‘National - children looked after at 31 March by placement type, distance of placement and locality of placement’ of the statistical release ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2019 to 2020’ at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2020.