Lord Laming

I pay tribute to the vital efforts of foster carers, who carry out a challenging role that requires skill, dedication and love. The government will ensure more children can receive loving care in foster families.

We will work with councils and fostering services to ensure foster carers receive the support they need and deserve. However, there are no plans to use the Employment Rights Bill to legislate on the employment status of foster carers.

My officials are working closely with officials from the Department for Education on how best to support foster carers.

This government is determined to break down barriers to opportunity for all our young people. We will act to prevent the damage caused to the lives of young people who are not in education, employment or training. The government recognises the complex, long-standing nature of the challenge, and will make a raft of changes to tackle it.

Young people are required to continue in education or training until they turn 18. We are preventing young people from losing touch with education or employment before the age of 18 through a guaranteed place in education and training for all 16 and 17-year-olds, expanded work experience and careers advice, action to tackle school attendance and improved access to mental health services for young people in England. Over £7.5 billion in 16 to 19 programme funding will be invested during the 2024/25 academic year, to pay for education for any 16, 17 or 18-year-olds in post-16 education.

£240 million has been announced to drive forward measures in the Get Britain Working White Paper. This includes a youth guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training, educational opportunities or help to find work. Working with Mayoral Authorities, and building on existing provision and entitlements, we will test new ways of supporting young people into employment or training. To do this, we will mobilise eight place-based youth guarantee trailblazers with £45 million of funding in 2025/26.

The comprehensive package also includes: a new national jobs and careers service to help more people into work, foundation apprenticeships to give people a new route into skilled work, Get Britain Working Plans for the economically inactive, and the launch of Skills England to open new opportunities for young people.

The department is committed to reforming the children’s social care system so that all children can grow up in stable and loving homes. To support this, the department has recently announced that it is investing an additional £44 million in kinship and foster care.

The King’s Speech on 17 July committed to a Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which will ensure our education and children’s social care systems transform lives for millions of children and young people in England. The department will use the Bill to deliver the government’s commitment on children’s social care.

The department wants to ensure that children leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.

The department does not currently have any plans to provide match funding to incentivise children in care to participate in the Stepladder Plus programme.

This government has been clear that absence from school is a key barrier to overcome, because if pupils are not attending school they cannot benefit from good teaching and learning.

Thanks to the efforts of the sector, there are more learners in school almost every day this year compared to last. However, with 1.6 million children still persistently absent, missing 10% of lessons or more, poor attendance remains a major challenge.

That is why the department will work with the sector to bring breakfast clubs to all primary schools, so that every child is in on time and ready to learn. The department will also introduce new annual Ofsted reviews of safeguarding, attendance, and off-rolling. The department will also tackle mental health issues among young people by providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.

This is in addition to activity to support schools and local authorities to tackle the school absence challenge. This includes:

• Setting clear expectations for schools, trusts and local authorities to provide a ‘support first’ approach: the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance requires schools, trusts and local authorities to work together to tackle absence and became statutory in August 2024. For those facing complex barriers to attendance, schools are asked to have sensitive conversations with children and families and work with them to put support in place for their individual needs. This guidance is attached and can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance.

• Supporting schools and local authorities to use data to target interventions: schools and local authorities can access an attendance data tool to identify and intervene where pupils are at risk of persistent absence. Sharing of attendance data has also become mandatory for all schools.

• Attendance mentors operating in five local authorities with high absence levels.

• 31 attendance hubs across the country, sharing best practice across the sector.

Wider measures such as the pupil premium, the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement plan, and the holiday activities and food programme also benefit attendance.

This government is committed to whole system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve.

The department recognises that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention to support families to stay together and thrive, and this will be at the heart of its whole system reform of children’s social care.

This department also recognises the valuable and important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. The government’s manifesto set out a commitment to working with local government to support children in care, including through kinship arrangements.

Through the £45 million Families First for Children pathfinder and Family Network Pilot, the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole family support in ten pathfinder local authorities. In these local authorities, multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity to prevent escalation.

These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks by involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home.

This government is committed to whole system reform of children’s social care to give hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve.

The department recognises that there is a strong evidence base for early intervention to support families to stay together and thrive, and this will be at the heart of its whole system reform of children’s social care.

This department also recognises the valuable and important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. The government’s manifesto set out a commitment to working with local government to support children in care, including through kinship arrangements.

Through the £45 million Families First for Children pathfinder and Family Network Pilot, the government is testing the implementation of intensive whole family support in ten pathfinder local authorities. In these local authorities, multi-disciplinary teams are providing targeted support to help families overcome challenges at the earliest opportunity to prevent escalation.

These local authorities are also making greater use of family networks by involving them in decision-making at an earlier stage and providing practical and financial support via family network support packages to help keep children safe at home.