Member

I take the noble Baroness’s point about the need to improve data collection, but the department already collects a variety of data relating to looked-after children. That includes: numbers of children looked after by local authorities; their characteristics, including gender, age and ethnicity; the reasons why they are looked after; their legal status; the type of placement that they are in; the distance they are placed from home; and their placement’s stability. On the important point about outcomes, which I agree with her about, the department also publishes data on their offending rates and health outcomes, data on missing children and why children cease to be looked after, as well as data on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Of course, we also have data about the educational achievements of children in care.