Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had recent discussions with Kent County Council on its proposal to reduce the eligible age for accessing its supported accommodation service for care leavers from 21 to 19.

Young people aged 16 or 17 who present as homeless should be supported in accordance with the following guidance, issued jointly by the Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b0ed0b240f0b634b1266bc9/Provision_of_accommodation_for_16_and_17_year_olds_who_may_be_homeless.pdf.

Care leavers aged over 18 do not have an automatic entitlement to be accommodated by their local authority. However, care leavers aged 18-21 are judged to have a ‘priority need’, as set out in Chapter 22 of the Homelessness Code of Guidance for local authorities, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/homelessness-code-of-guidance-for-local-authorities/chapter-22-care-leavers. This includes categories and definitions of people who have priority need and includes young people under 21 who were looked after between the ages of 16 and 18; and people aged 21 or over who are vulnerable as a result of having been looked after, accommodated or fostered.

In addition, the Children Act 1989 sets out responsibilities on local authorities to support care leavers to make a successful transition from care to independent living. This includes a requirement on local authorities to appoint a Personal Adviser to support the young person up to at least age 21, and up to age 25 if the young person requests it. The Act also includes a duty on local authorities to support care leavers to remain living with their former foster carers up to age 21 under a ‘staying put’ arrangement, if both the young person and carer want to continue living together. The department is providing £99 million to local authorities in this Spending Review period to support implementation of ‘staying put’.

The department is also providing £53 million in this Spending Review period to roll-out ‘staying close’, which provides an enhanced support package for young people leaving children’s homes, and £9.6 million in this Spending Review period to support around 60 local authorities with the highest numbers of care leavers at risk of rough sleeping, as part of the cross-government rough sleeping strategy.

The Department has not had discussions with Kent County Council on this issue.