Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to extend the Adoption Support Fund to aid the recruitment and retention of foster carers and the children's home workforce.

The adoption support fund (ASF) was developed to provide vital therapeutic interventions for children that have left the care system through adoption or special guardianship orders. The ASF does not provide funding for any type of recruitment activity.

However, the department has invested in different approaches to help councils provide the right kind of foster care places. This includes using digital tools to improve information sharing, matching and placement processes. The department has also funded seven local authority-led partnerships to test new approaches to collaborative commissioning and sufficiency planning for fostering placements. In addition, the department is working collaboratively with the residential childcare sector to identify ways to support it to promote careers in the sector, and how it can raise the profile of these roles locally.