Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of Staying Close funding scheme on prospects of children leaving the care system.

Within the 2022/23 to 2024/25 financial years, the department is providing £53 million to 47 local authorities and three private providers to deliver the Staying Close programme. The programme supports care leavers to find and maintain move-on accommodation, and provides practical and emotional support from someone they know and trust, to young people leaving residential and other care placements.

The independent evaluations of the initial pilots showed Staying Close found promising evidence that this programme can support better outcomes for care leavers including a 20% improvement in mental health outcomes, a 13% reduction in the number of young people who were not in education, employment or training and a 21% reduction in anti-social behaviour.

The evaluations reported that Staying Close supported young people to develop and build the skills needed to prepare for independent living. Feedback showed that young people’s life skills had improved after six months of participating in the project and that they felt happier in themselves. They also showed increased participation in activities, whether education, employment or getting involved with other activities in the project.

The department continues to look at the impact of Staying Close and have commissioned the Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI) to undertake further evaluation. This is due to report in early 2025.