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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Kelly Tolhurst)
It is a great honour to be here today responding on behalf of the Government in my new role. I want to start by thanking the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing what is an important debate. I agree 100%. Also, I have never had the opportunity to say this directly to him, but let me say in my role here that what the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and his wife Allison have done for their grandchild is just fantastic and to be commended. He is a fine example of how kinship can work, so well done.
All hon. Members who have joined today’s debate will agree that kinship carers are an untapped and undervalued asset. Their value to the children’s social care system and the lives of children up and down the country cannot be overstated. A fortnight ago, we celebrated national Kinship Care Week, which recognised the important role that such carers play in children’s lives. As part of those celebrations, we invited a group of kinship carers into the Department to hear their stories and inform the work we are doing to produce a children’s social care implementation strategy by the end of the year. I also wish to thank the APPG for the work it has done in this area, as well as charities such as Kinship and other organisations in the sector, which have been doing so much for this cohort of carers.
Hon. Members may be aware that I have a deep personal connection to this issue. My own sister is a social worker, and I have been an independent visitor for a looked-after child for many years. I have seen many children thrive in the care system but then face significant challenges when they reach the age of 18 and are often left with few loving relationships to sustain them throughout adulthood. Kinship care can be the antidote to a lifetime of isolation and loneliness. It allows young people to remain safely rooted within family networks and local communities, which provide us with the mental, emotional and physical support we all need. The need for family and community was acutely demonstrated during the recent covid-19 pandemic.
I am passionate about improving the lives of children. That is why I was honoured to become the Minister for Schools and Childhood last month. Supporting kinship care is a route to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to grow up in a loving, safe and stable environment and to maximise their potential. I welcome the opportunity to set out what we are doing as a Government to make that vision a reality.
This year, we have seen the publication of three reviews that, in their own way, call for a reset of the children’s social care system. As we know, they were the independent review of children’s social care, the national child safeguarding practice review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson and a report by the Competition and Markets Authority into the children’s social care market. In Prime Minister’s questions on 7 September, in response to the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), the Prime Minister told the House that the Government would publish a response to those landmark reviews before the end of the year. We are still committed to that timeline, and that has been a major part of my work since being appointed to the Department. Hon. Members will understand that I cannot give full details of the response today, but I am glad to be able to update the House on the progress so far.
First, we have established a national implementation board, which will include people with lived experience of the care system and leaders who have experience of implementing transformational change. The board will oversee a programme to reform children’s social care. Secondly, we have made early progress on commitments that the Government made when the independent review of children’s social care was published earlier this year. On Thursday 6 October, we launched the data and digital solutions fund, to help local authorities to unlock progress for children and families through the better use of technology. That includes a project to better understand data on kinship care, and to scope options for improving its use.
Perhaps most importantly in the context of this debate, the independent review of children’s social care shone a spotlight on successive Governments’ lack of focus on kinship care and the children who live with kinship carers. The review made seven specific recommendations, which sought to prioritise and improve support for kinship carers and children, and we will respond to those in the upcoming children’s social care implementation strategy. Although I cannot announce the detail of the response today, I can commit that kinship care will be front and centre. It will get the focus and backing from Government that it deserves in the years to come. Our response will address many of the issues raised by hon. Members today, including the hon. Member for Twickenham—hopefully including financial support, entitlements for kinship carers and the creation of a new definition of kinship care, which was a specific recommendation made by the review.
Kinship carers play a vital role in looking after children who cannot be cared for by their birth parents. There are over 150,000 children in England living in kinship care, many of whom would be in local authority care if those families had not stepped in. It is clear that more needs to be done to build a system in which every child’s right to a family is safeguarded. We must give all children an opportunity to grow up in a loving kinship home when that is in their best interests and when they cannot be safely looked after by their parents.
Some local authorities already make greater use of kinship care placements than others. The proportion of children in care placed in kinship foster care ranges from 4% in some local authorities to 39% in others. It cannot be right that children’s opportunities to live with their families are based on their postcode, and I will use the response to the care review to begin to address that disparity.
Children growing up in kinship care achieve better outcomes than their peers who grow up in care. That includes achieving better GCSE results on average, and having a greater chance of being in employment than children who grow up in foster or residential care.
Jim Shannon
In my contribution, I referred to two figures. Some 28% of those in kinship care are educationally challenged—to use that terminology—as against a national average of 6%, which is a real anomaly. The figures to which the Minister referred are greatly encouraging, but can she confirm what extra assistance is available for kinship carers who are looking after young children who are educationally challenged?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We need also to look at this through the lens of our work in the Green Paper on special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision. In my experience, this issue affects not just children in kinship arrangements but looked-after children. My focus throughout this whole process is achieving better outcomes for children. That will always be front and centre of all decisions and all information that I receive.
Despite the good outcomes for children in kinship care, they still lag behind those children who have never had involvement with children’s services. There is much more to do, with greater Government focus and close collaborative working with local authorities, schools and colleges. I am convinced that we can reduce that gap.
As hon. Members will no doubt recognise, the theme underpinning many of my points today is that we have made progress but far more remains to do. Last year we announced £1 million of new funding to deliver high-quality peer support groups for kinship carers across the country. We know that becoming a kinship carer for the first time is often a frightening and bewildering experience, as the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish illustrated.
The support of peers can act as a beacon to help people through. Those support groups are already building powerful communities and enabling kinship carers to connect with those in similar situations. The Government recently confirmed that we will invest a further £1 million next year to ensure that more than 100 peer support groups are established across the country by January 2024.
Hon. Members have raised with me, including in this debate, the issue of educational entitlement for children in kinship care. That area is important to me, and I recognise how much has been done, but there is more to do. Since 2018, virtual school heads and designated teachers have had a responsibility to promote the educational achievement of pupils who leave state care to live with an adopter or special guardian. Children who live with special guardians and were previously looked after by the state are eligible for the pupil premium, as the hon. Member for Twickenham outlined.
Kinship children who were not previously looked after but had been entitled to free school meals, at any point over the past six years, attract the pupil premium funding. We constantly review that and assess the effectiveness of the pupil premium, to ensure that it supports pupils facing the most disadvantage. Last year we consulted on changes to school admission codes to improve in-year admissions. Children in formal kinship care were in scope of those changes, which mean that kinship carers can secure an in-year school place for their child when they are unable to do so via other means. Those new measures came into force on 1 September 2021.
Finally, children living with special guardians who have previously been in state care can access therapeutic support via the adoption support fund, which has already been outlined. This year, we have also made that support available to those children who live with relatives under child arrangements orders. We are looking to improve local authorities’ engagement with the adoption support fund, to increase the proportion of eligible kinship carers who apply.
As hon. Members have eloquently outlined, I recognise the strain that kinship families are under, and will continue to work collaboratively with local areas to ensure that children, young people and families have access to the support they need to respond to the cost of living pressures. I am committed to supporting kinship carers. The independent review of children’s social care recommended a financial allowance for carers looking after children under a child arrangements order and those looking after children under a special guardianship order. My Department is considering each recommendation, and will respond by the end of the year.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I wanted to be part of this debate, but I had two meetings about my private Member’s Bill next week, so I could not be here at the beginning, for which I apologise. I wanted to implore the Minister, in considering the financial issues, to reflect on a situation in my constituency, where the grandmother ended up having to look after the grandchildren while the parents were having issues. The problem was that she had to spend her own money, and she did not have a lot of it. When we asked social services, they said, “Only if we place the children in her care will she get some financial funding, but not until then.” For weeks and weeks, nothing happened. This issue may have been discussed, but I wanted to raise it.
Kelly Tolhurst
I know that the hon. Lady is passionate about this area, and I recognise what she has illustrated. The stories that Members have told in this debate have alluded to similar pressures that they have come across in their constituency casework, and it is something that I have seen at first hand, prior to becoming a Member of Parliament. Given that we recognise the value of kinship carers, we are taking the recommendations very seriously, and I am doing my best to show that the Government are committed to looking at this area and taking reasonable decisions.
Kinship carers often develop strong bonds with children who have just entered their homes, and taking leave from work could play a role by giving those carers time to do so. There is currently a range of Government support for such carers and employers, and some employers provide significant support to employees without a legal requirement to do so. We would encourage employers to continue to respond with this flexibility, but we will be considering the case for extending parental leave to kinship carers as part of our response to the independent review of children’s social care later this year and—I hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—when I speak to my successors in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on this topic.
I also recognise the importance of making informed choices about the legal status of children entering the homes of kinship carers. The Ministry of Justice laid a statutory instrument yesterday to make legal aid available for special guardianship orders in private family proceedings, which will help prospective special guardians to get advice and assistance on the order before processing. My Department is working closely with colleagues in the MOJ on implementing the recommendations from the social care review, and on giving access to legal aid to some kinship carers.
Today’s debate has rightly focused on some real issues that we know kinship carers face. My hope is that we will be able to respond to the concerns and recommendations with the implementation strategy by the end of the year. I am absolutely committed to that, and to listening to and learning from kinship carers, who make the selfless decision to care for a child who cannot safely remain with their parents. I look forward to working with them and all hon. Members on this important issue, because it is important not only for many of us across this Chamber, but for our country and for how young people develop and thrive in the United Kingdom.