Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the number of foster carers in (a) England and (b) Cheshire.

This government is committed to working in partnership with local authorities to recruit more foster carers and committed an additional £15 million in the Autumn Budget 2024. This funding is to start work to ensure every local authority has access to a hub and to embed the existing regional fostering recruitment and retention hubs, covering 64% of local authorities in England. The hubs will transform the way people who are interested in fostering are supported and rollout the Mockingbird programme, which offers peer-support to foster carers and the children in their care. The department is also funding ‘Fosterlink’, a support service for local authority fostering services not in the regional programme. This identifies areas for improvement and creates a national network to share best practice.