To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 29 April 2009, Official Report, column 1387W, on the General Certificate of Secondary Education: young offender institutions, how many young people housed in young offender institutions achieved (a) one A* to G grade, (b) five A* to G grades, (c) five A* to C grades and (d) five A* to C grades, including English and mathematics at GCSE in each year for which the Learning and Skills Council holds figures. (273426)

[holding answer 7 May 2009]: The individualised learning record (ILR) data LSC collected for 2006/07 do not allow us to answer the specific questions on the range of grades achieved. However these data show that during the 2006/07 academic year there were a total of 68 GCSE achievements by 15 to 17-year-olds in Prison Service YOIs, of which:

19 people achieved one GCSE;

Five people achieved two GCSEs;

13 people achieved three GCSEs;

The LSC’s young persons’ learning 1 (YOL1) data show that during the 2007/08 academic year, for young people under the age of 18, there were 106 GCSE achievements between grades A and C, and 159 GCSE achievements below grade C. However the data set allowing us to break this down into the number of people achieving different numbers of GCSEs (i.e. ILR) is not yet available for the 2007/08 academic year.

Also, note that the figures quoted will not include all of the GCSEs achieved by young people in juvenile custody, as some young people in custody are still registered at schools and colleges and any GCSEs that they achieve while in custody will be reflected in achievement figures of schools and colleges, rather than the figures reported by the LSC in these statistics.

Also, many young people stay in custody only for a very short time, and therefore it is not realistic for them to achieve long-term qualifications while they are in custody, especially as GCSEs can only be taken at certain points of the year.