Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of support for kinship carers raising disabled children.

The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children.

In October 2024, we published the kinship care statutory guidance for local authorities, which sets out the support and services local authorities should provide to kinship families, including reaffirming the requirement to publish their local offer of support in a clear, accessible way. The guidance can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/670d3ed5e84ae1fd8592f2fa/Kinship_Care_-_statutory_guidance_for_local_authorities__October_2024.pdf.

The guidance makes it clear that children and young people should receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. All local authorities should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services.

The department’s ‘Working together to safeguard children’ guidance, which is aimed at all agencies working to safeguard children, sets out how the social care needs of disabled children, and their carers, should be assessed. The guidance is clear that, “if a local authority considers that a parent carer of a disabled child may have support needs, it must carry out an assessment under section 17ZD of the Children Act 1989”. The local authority must also carry out such an assessment if a parent or carer requests one. The guidance can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65797f1e0467eb000d55f689/Working_together_to_safeguard_children_2023_-_statutory_framework.pdf.

Moreover, under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, it is the general duty of every local authority to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area who are in need, and to promote the upbringing of such children by their families by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those children’s needs, such as the provision of short breaks.