Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting the following information regarding children in the care of your local authority.

1. For each of the last five calendar years (2020–2024), please provide:
• The number of children in care (Looked After Children) reported missing.
• Of those, the please provide the number who received a statutory return home interview.
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• The total number of individual missing incidents involving children in care.
• The number of children who went missing more than 10 times in a single year.
• The average length of time these children were missing before being located.

2. Of the missing children:
• How many were placed in unregulated or semi-independent accommodation?
• How many were placed out of area (i.e. outside the boundary of your local authority)?
• How many remain unaccounted for / are still classified as missing as of today?

3. For the five-year period:
• Please provide any serious incident notifications or referrals made to the Department for Education or Ofsted regarding missing children in care.
• If held, please provide any anonymised risk assessments or internal reviews following cases where children in care went missing for more than 7 days.