| answer text |
<p>The attached table shows the number of looked-after children in children’s homes
who were missing or away without authorisation status, and by placement location,
from 2015 to 2018, for each local authority. The figures presented in the table are
higher than those presented in response to PQ <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2019-06-24/268391/"
target="_blank">268391</a>, as a child may have an incident that is ‘missing’ and
an incident that is classified as ‘away without authorisation’ in their care history.
These incidents may also vary by placement location over the same period. A child
will be counted once for each variation of incident that is recorded.</p><p>The latest
figures nationally on children looked after who go missing and the number of incidents
are published in table G1 of the statistical release ‘Children looked after in England
including adoption: 2017 to 2018’, which can be found at the following link: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018</a>.</p><p>All
figures on the overall number of children who were looked after during the year, who
were missing or away from placement without authorisation, are still classified as
experimental statistics. This is the fourth year these statistics have been collected
in this way, and local authorities have reported some variation over recent years
in how these incidents are recorded.</p><p>As experimental statistics, figures are
not comparable across years. Local authority comparisons should be treated with the
same degree of caution and firm conclusions cannot be drawn about local practice.
Some authorities have informed the department that they do not record any incidents
as ‘away without authorisation’ but instead report all incidents as ‘missing information’.
We estimate that around 1 in 3 local authorities record this data in this way. We
will continue to assess whether the figures are considered robust enough to be classed
as national statistics, rather than experimental.</p>
|
|
