Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of support for kinship carers raising disabled children.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children.
In October 2024, we published the kinship care statutory guidance for local authorities, which sets out the support and services local authorities should provide to kinship families, including reaffirming the requirement to publish their local offer of support in a clear, accessible way. The guidance can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/670d3ed5e84ae1fd8592f2fa/Kinship_Care_-_statutory_guidance_for_local_authorities__October_2024.pdf.
The guidance makes it clear that children and young people should receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. All local authorities should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services.
The department’s ‘Working together to safeguard children’ guidance, which is aimed at all agencies working to safeguard children, sets out how the social care needs of disabled children, and their carers, should be assessed. The guidance is clear that, “if a local authority considers that a parent carer of a disabled child may have support needs, it must carry out an assessment under section 17ZD of the Children Act 1989”. The local authority must also carry out such an assessment if a parent or carer requests one. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65797f1e0467eb000d55f689/Working_together_to_safeguard_children_2023_-_statutory_framework.pdf.
Moreover, under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, it is the general duty of every local authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need, and to promote the upbringing of such children by their families by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children’s needs, such as the provision of short breaks.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on improving financial support for kinship carers.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. Kinship carers often take on this role at a time when they were least expecting to raise a family and we recognise the challenges they face, including financial.
At the Autumn Budget 2024, we announced £40 million of funding to trial a kinship allowance in some local authorities in England. We will test whether paying an allowance to cover the additional costs of caring for a child can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends. We will share further details and the process for selecting local authorities in due course.
This is the single biggest investment made by government in kinship care to date. This investment could transform the lives of vulnerable children who can no longer live at home by allowing children to grow up within their families and communities, reducing disruption to their early years, so they can focus on schooling and building friendships.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to extend (a) family finding, (b) befriending and (c) mentoring support for children in the care system to build relationships.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to helping children thrive, and we want the best for every child and family. We know that a stable support network and loving relationships are crucial to supporting children in care and care leavers to thrive.
To support this, we are currently funding 50 family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes being delivered by 45 local authorities. These programmes will help children in care and care leavers to identify and connect with the important people in their lives, improve their sense of identity and community and create and sustain consistent, stable and loving relationships.
We have commissioned an independent evaluation of the family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes, and this will inform decisions about their future.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment has she made of the adequacy of therapeutic support for children in kinship care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government recognises the importance of health and therapeutic support services for all children, including those in kinship care. Ensuring every child receives the support they need is a key priority.
The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) helps adoptive and special guardianship order children, and their families, access therapeutic interventions related to trauma and attachment.
In December 2023, we began to require the use of outcomes measurement tools with ASGSF-funded therapies to help assess the impact and effectiveness of different types of therapy. We hope that this will improve local and national understanding of the effectiveness of therapies for different children and families.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) internal policy reviews, (b) independent reviews, (c) external reviews, (d) taskforces, (e) public consultations, (f) investigations and (g) other reviews their Department launched between 5 July 2024 and 5 January 2025; what the titles were of those reviews; and how many of those reviews have been (i) completed and (ii) published.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has outlined its ambitions through the Plan for Change, which sets out an ambitious set of milestones, across the Missions, for this Parliament. As the House would expect, the government continually reviews its work to ensure that it is delivering the best outcomes for the people of the United Kingdom, and that its policies continue to represent the best value for the taxpayer. Public reviews will be available on GOV.UK as they are published.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending eligibility for Pupil Premium Plus to (a) children who have not been looked after and (b) other children in kinship care.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department is providing over £2.9 billion of pupil premium funding in 2024/25 to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils in England.
The criteria for pupil premium eligibility are:
The portion of funding for looked-after children and previously looked-after children is often referred to as pupil premium plus.
Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils and schools do not have to spend this funding so that it solely benefits pupils who meet the funding criteria. Schools can direct spending where the need is greatest, including to pupils with other identified needs, such as children in kinship care. Schools can also use pupil premium on whole class approaches that will benefit all pupils such as, for example, on high quality teaching.
The department will continue to keep eligibility under review to ensure that support is targeted at those who most need it.