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26 Nov 2008 : Column 1821W—continued
Beverley Hughes: It has not proved possible to respond in the time available before Prorogation.
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children who had ever been in care while at their present school were in their school's gifted and talented cohort on the latest date for which figures are available, broken down by local authority. [235583]
Beverley Hughes: It has not proved possible to respond in the time available before Prorogation.
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children have been taken into care in each year since 1997, broken down by reasons for being taken into care. [236541]
Beverley Hughes: The number of children that have been taken into care in each year since 2001, broken down by reasons for being taken into care can be found in the following table.
Information going back to 1997 is not available. This is due to an introduction of new category of need codes in 2000 on the Children Looked After system which are used to identify the reason for being taken into care.
| Children who were taken into care during the years ending 31 March by category of need( 1,2,3,4,5,6) years ending 31 March 2001 to 2008. Coverage: England | ||||||||
| Number | ||||||||
| ( 5) 2001 | ( 5) 2002 | ( 5) 2003 | ( 6) 2004 | ( 6) 2005 | ( 6) 2006 | ( 6) 2007 | ( 6) 2008 | |
| Source: (1) SSDA903 return on children looked after. Notes: (2) Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short term placements. (3) “Children taken into care” are children who started to be loo ked after under the following legal status: interim or full care orders, police protection or emergency protection or child assessment orders. They exclude children freed for adoption or for whom a placement order was granted, they exclude children under voluntary accommodation and they also exclude children under youth justice legal statuses. (4) Historical data may differ from older publications. This is mainly due to the implementation of amendments and corrections sent by some local authorities after the publication date of previous materials. (5) Figures are taken from the SSDA903 one-third sample survey. (6) Figures are taken from the SSDA903 return which, since 2003-04 has covered all children looked after. (7) It is the most applicable category of the eight “Need Codes” at the time the child was taken into care rather than necessarily the entire reason they are looked after. | ||||||||
Children in Care: Coastal Areas
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many looked after children there were in each (a) ward and (b) lower layer super output area in each of the principal seaside towns in England in the last year for which figures were available. [238294]
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Information on the number of looked after children in each (a) ward and (b) lower super output area in each of the principal seaside towns in England is not collected centrally by the department. The lowest level of information available is by Local Authority.
Information on the number of looked after children at 31 March by Local Authority for the last 5 years can be found in table LAA1. This table is taken from the
Statistical First Release (SFR 23/2008) entitled “Children looked after in England (including adoption and care leavers) year ending 31 March 2008”.
Table LAA1 can be found within the first set of additional Excel tables.
Children in Care: Crime
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the Answer of 11 November 2008, Official Report, column 1067W, on children in care: crime, how much has been spent on the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders since its inception. [236336]
Beverley Hughes: It has not proved possible to respond in the time available before Prorogation.
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what steps he is taking to improve the performance of local authority care systems in preventing looked-after children from offending; [238086]
(2) if he will put in place strategies to assist local authorities in their capacity as corporate parents to prevent children in their care becoming involved in crime. [238113]
Beverley Hughes: Government requires local authorities to collect data on the incidence of offending by children aged 10 or over in their care that have been looked after continuously for at least a year to contribute to the national statistics collection about outcomes for looked after children. Local authorities use this information to improve their performance in reducing offending by children in their care.
As part of our programme to deliver the commitments set out in the Care Matters White Paper, my Department we will be producing revised guidance to local authorities with information on their responsibilities for preventing offending by looked after children.
The care plan for a child in care and the pathway plan for a care leaver must include a clear strategy setting out how the young person will be supported to prevent any repetition of offending behaviour. Placement decisions, especially where residential care is being considered, must take account of the quality of support and supervision given to children to ensure that they are engaged in constructive activities enabling them to enjoy and achieve and do not have any opportunity to get caught up in anti-social behaviour or offending.
We would expect local authority children's services to establish real constructive relationships with local youth offending teams.
Children in Care: Mentally Ill
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what estimate he has made of the number of children and adolescents in care homes who had mental health problems in each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority. [236947]
Beverley Hughes: Information on the number of children and adolescents in care homes who had mental health problems in each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority is not currently collected centrally by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
However, table A3, taken from the Statistical First Release (SFR 23/2008) entitled “Children looked after in England (including adoption and care leavers) year ending 31 March 2008,”shows the number of children in residential care homes at 31 March for each year from 2004 to 2008. The SFR is located at
and table A3 can be found within the first set of Excel tables on the website. Information is not readily available for the number of children in residential care homes for earlier years and can only be provided at a disproportionate cost. Information on number of children in residential care homes could be produced at a local authority level however the numbers would be very small and disclosure rules would result in the vast majority of the figures having to be suppressed.
Children: Care Homes
Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children's homes there were in each of the principal English seaside towns in each year for which figures are available; and how many children were in each home in each year. [238920]
Beverley Hughes: This is a matter for Ofsted. HM Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert, has written to my hon. Friend and a copy of her reply has been placed in the Library.
Letter from Christine Gilbert, dated 24 November 2008:
Your recent parliamentary question has been passed to me, as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, for a response.
Ofsted assumed responsibility for the regulation of children's homes in April 2007. Annual data about the number of children's homes and places prior to that point are only available at a national level, and can be obtained from the annual reports of the Commission of Social Care Inspection.
The table below displays the number of children's homes and the maximum number of places available in each of the principal English seaside towns in 2007 and 2008. These data were taken from figures available at the end of March 2007 and March 2008, and only include children's homes that were active at those points. Ofsted does not hold data on the number of children in a particular home. Therefore, the table includes the total number of registered places (aggregated for each town).
A copy of this reply has been sent to the right hon. Beverley Hughes MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, and will be placed in the Library of both Houses.
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