Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with adoptive and kinship families about levels of support offered by statutory authorities to meet family needs.

The government works closely with organisations that represent kinship and adoptive families, and directly with adopters and kinship carers through both our adopter and kinship carer reference groups.

Following the Care Review, the government updated the kinship care guidance for local authorities and appointed the first ever National Kinship Ambassador, who works closely to engage with lived experience groups.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to assess and provide adoption support tailored to family needs. This includes financial assistance such as adoption allowances, settling-in grants, and access to adoption leave and pay. The adoption and special guardianship support fund provides post-adoption support interventions, including therapeutic support for adopted children and their families.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the department will mandate all local authorities in England to publish their local kinship offer and offer family group decision-making at pre-proceedings where that is in the child’s best interests. We will soon trial a kinship allowance in some local authorities, to support eligible kinship carers with the additional cost incurred when taking the parental responsibility of a child in kinship care.