Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of financial support available to kinship carers.

On 2 February 2023, the department published the children’s social care implementation strategy and consultation ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which set out how we will achieve broad, system-wide transformation.

Through this strategy we have made a commitment to implement or explore each of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care recommendations on kinship care.

The department will publish our kinship strategy later this year which will set out a range of policies designed to support kinship families in England.

Financial support is a vital element of enabling children to remain within their family and friends’ network and we are considering how we can further support carers beyond the existing support local authorities provide for kinship carers.