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.

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.

The department is committed to working with local government to support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption. The department is also strengthening regulation of the children’s social care sector, so that every child has the best start in life no matter where they grow up.

This government is committed to helping children thrive and wants the best for every child and family. That means providing the right early support for families facing challenges, keeping children close to their communities and family networks and stepping in to keep children safe from harm where this is necessary. For example, the Families First for Children Pathfinder is working with ten local areas to test delivery of children's social care reforms spanning family network engagement and support, safeguarding partners, targeted early help (‘family help’) and child protection. The department will build on the foundations laid by local authorities over recent years to create for a care system that works for everyone.

The Government is committed to ensuring that families have the support that they need. We want to ensure that people who care for family and friends are better able to look after their own health and wellbeing.

Long-term reform is needed in social care, and we will engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including unpaid carers, to ensure their voices are heard as we develop plans to create a National Care Service. The National Care Service will be underpinned by national standards and delivered locally to ensure that everyone, including unpaid carers, is supported to live independent, dignified lives.

The Government recognises that many unpaid carers can face challenges balancing employment with caring. That is why we are committed to reviewing the implementation of carer’s leave, and examining the benefits of introducing paid carer’s leave.

We must also ensure that carers are supported by the benefits system. The Department for Work and Pensions will keep Carer’s Allowance under review to see if it meets its objectives. The previous Work and Pensions Committee made a number of recommendations for changing the rules and processes. The Government will respond to those recommendations in due course.

This Government is committed to ensuring that families and friends who provide care for loved ones have the support they need and can look after their own health and wellbeing as well as those for whom they care.

We recognise the challenges carers are facing, and we want to provide the financial help and support they need and deserve, including through Carer’s Allowance and Universal Credit.

Local authorities also have duties to support carers. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support for carers.

The Government is also committed to reviewing the implementation of Carer’s Leave and examining all the benefits of introducing paid Carer’s Leave.

The Government is grateful for the suggestion made by the Share Foundation of a way in which HMRC could develop a system of paying out the savings held in matured Child Trust Fund (CTF) accounts that have not been accessed by the account owners by the age of 21.

This proposal is complex and could not be implemented easily, or without allocating significant resources. The savings in these accounts belong to the account owner even if they are not aware of the account’s existence. For HMRC to close these accounts, obtain the savings in those accounts and transfer them with or without the owner’s consent would require careful legal consideration. This is quite apart from the operational systems and resources across Government departments and CTF providers that would be required to monitor the transactions.

The Government is committed to reuniting all young adults with their CTFs and recognises the importance of ensuring that young adults can benefit from these funds as they reach adulthood.

To that end, HMRC continues to work with CTF providers, industry representatives and stakeholders to explore ways of increasing the profile of CTFs and enabling account owners to be aware of and trace their accounts. HMRC has ongoing work with the University and Colleges Admissions Service to encourage awareness among student peer groups and a communications plan which targets young people. HMRC has recently amended gov.uk to reference The Share Foundation’s CTF account tracing service, providing an additional way for young people to trace their accounts.