To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of children who receive mental health assessments on entering care; and what assessment he has made of recent trends in such figures.

Data is not collected nationally on the number of children entering care who receive a mental health assessment.

Local authorities are responsible for making sure that a health assessment is carried out for every child they look after when they start to be looked after. The care planning regulations specify that this should include an assessment of the child’s emotional and mental wellbeing. The Department for Education annually collects data from local authorities on the numbers of children continuously looked after for at least 12 months at 31 March who received their statutory annual health assessment during the year. At 31 March 2014, 88.4% of these looked-after children did so.