Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Care Leaver Covenant announced by his Department in October 2018, how many organisations have signed up to offer placement opportunities to young care leavers.

As of 14 March 2019, 75 organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors had signed the care leaver covenant and published their offers to care leavers. All covenant offers are available to view at: https://mycovenant.org.uk/featured-signatories/. In addition, each government department has set out its offer to care leavers, copies of which have been published on GOV.UK. Spectra First, the government’s delivery partner for the care leaver covenant, is currently working with a number of other organisations which have signed a statement of intent confirming that they will provide opportunities to care leavers, but where the detail of their offer has not been finalised.

The aim of the care leaver covenant is to secure offers for care leavers that will support them to achieve one or more of the 5 outcomes set out in the cross-government care leaver strategy – Keep on Caring – one of which is to be engaged in education, employment or training. From the 75 organisations that have signed the covenant so far, employment offers include:

• 27 offers of work experience placements, ranging from one week to 3 months;
• 5 offers of apprenticeships and;
• 11 offers of paid internships or employment.

In addition, PGL (a provider of activity holidays for children and young people) has over 1,000 jobs in their summer camps in 2019 and has indicated that they would strongly encourage care leavers to apply for these vacancies. The government is leading the way through its civil service care leaver internship scheme, which in 2019 is providing 75 12-month paid internships across 18 government departments.

Other (non-employment-related) offers of support include: enhanced support packages for care leavers from universities and further education colleges, and offers of workshops/training on areas such as money management and maintaining a tenancy.