Under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 (as amended), local authorities have a duty to put alternative provision in place for children of compulsory school age who would not otherwise receive suitable education for any reason. A number of these children may be young offenders who are not in custody. The department issues statutory guidance for local authorities on alternative provision which outlines that good alternative provision (AP) should have arrangements for working with youth offending teams.
Funding for compulsory school age children in alternative provision is made available to local authorities through high needs funding. The department also collects data annually on the number of children in local authority-commissioned alternative provision in schools, pupils and their characteristics. This can be found in the attached spreadsheet, which is part of information collected in the January 2017 school census available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2017.
Where a child is in custody, education providers (in Youth Offending Institutions and Secure Training Centres) are required to assess the educational needs of young people. Their contracts also require them to provide support services for young people with special educational needs or disabilities.
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