Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2025 to Question 22689 on Carers: Social Security Benefits, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Kinship Allowance Trial on investment in kinship care; and when she plans to announce details on the process for selecting local authorities for that trial.

As previously mentioned, the government has recently announced a £40 million package to trial a new kinship allowance. The pilot will begin in 2025, and the department will evaluate the pilot to build an evidence base on how best to deliver financial support for kinship families.

The department will share further details on the process for selecting local authorities in due course.

The department’s ambition is that all kinship carers will get the support they need to care for their children. It is important that we first build the evidence base to find out how best to deliver financial support for kinship families. Decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation.