FOI reference: FOI-2025-2624
You asked
I would like to make a Freedom of Information request please in respect of the below data:
National data:
- The number of female / assigned female at birth diagnosed with autism and the corresponding data for males / assigned males at birth diagnosed with autism.
- The number of females with EHCP – education health and care plans and the corresponding data for males
- The number of females identified as severely absent from education and the corresponding data for males – with attendance at 50% or below as defined by the Department for Education (DfE).
- The rates of death by suicide for autistic females
- The rates of unemployment for autistic females
We said
Thank you for your request.
We do not hold information on diagnosis, healthcare plans, education absence rates. You can contact NHS England, the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions who may be able to help you with this information. You can contact them on england.contactus@nhs.net, form.education@gov.uk and freedom-of-information-request@dwp.gov.uk respectively.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales, National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk.
ONS mortality data is taken from the information provided on death certificates. The death certificate used in England and Wales is compatible with that recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It is set out in two parts. Part I gives the condition or sequence of conditions leading directly to death, while Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death but are not part of the causal sequence. It is possible that if a person was diagnosed with autism, it would be mentioned on the death certificate, but this may not be recorded for all cases, so may be an undercount.
We have not produced any statistics on the suicide rates for females with autism. The requested information would therefore need to be created as a custom output. This information along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales may be available to order. Please note these services are subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs in line with the ONS's charging policy, available on the ONS website.
Please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk for more information.
Information on unemployment is collected by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), a survey of people living in households. We also collect information on the health conditions of respondents, including autism. Unfortunately, we do not routinely publish these statistics, so this information would need to be created.
It would be possible to produce estimates of the number of women who are unemployed who report having autism, although it is likely that such detailed estimates would be of poor quality due to small sample sizes. If you wish to request a tailored analysis to be produced you can do so by contacting our social survey team (socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk). There may be a charge for this service, depending on the time taken to develop the analysis and undertake quality and disclosure control processes.