Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of equalising financial allowances between foster carers and kinship carers.

The department will soon begin to trial a new Kinship Allowance in a number of local authorities. Funding for this was announced at the Autumn Budget 2024.

The pilot will provide all those caring for a child in a kinship arrangement with a Special Guardianship Order or a ‘lives with’ Child Arrangement Order, where the child would have otherwise been in care, an allowance paid at the same rate as foster care, in the pilot local authorities.

This will support approximately 4,500 kinship children and help equalise the financial allowance between foster carers and kinship carers.