Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of local authorities' capacity to place unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with foster carers.

The department takes the welfare of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) seriously and is clear that they should be in the care of a local authority, including foster care where appropriate.

With the aim of identifying and overcoming barriers to moving UASC swiftly out of hotels to local authority care placements through the National Transfer Scheme, a UASC Taskforce was established in November - jointly chaired by the Department for Education and Home Office Permanent Secretaries and involving the Association of Directors Of Children's Services (ADCS), Local Government Authorities (LGA), Ofsted and representatives from the devolved nations.

The department monitors closely data and research in trends relating to the recruitment of foster carers. Recognising the urgency of action in placement sufficiency, we will prioritise working with local authorities to recruit more foster carers. Depending on local need, this may include for example sibling groups, teenagers, mother and baby placements, UASC and children who have suffered complex trauma. This will involve pathfinder local recruitment campaigns that build towards a national programme, to help ensure children have access to the right placements at the right time. As the Care Review recommends, we will focus on providing more support throughout the application process to improve the conversion rate from expressions of interest to approved foster carers. More information on foster care placements can be found here: https://childrenssocialcare.independent-review.uk/final-report/.

The department works collaboratively with local government - including the LGA and ADCS - to understand questions of capacity around placing UASC in local authority care. This involves working closely with those local authorities where there may be barriers or challenges to taking UASC and with local government to understand and disseminate good practice when it comes to placing and caring for UASC.