Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the adequacy of existing levels of kinship care.

The department is committed to supporting kinship carers and ensuring that children in kinship care arrangements have the opportunity to thrive. This includes removing barriers from carers coming forward, where that is in the child’s best interests. At the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced a £40 million package to trial a new kinship allowance to test whether paying an allowance to cover the additional costs of supporting the child can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends. This is the single biggest investment made by government in kinship care to date.

Unlike in foster care, there is no general pool of kinship carers to recruit from. Kinship arrangements happen when a specific child cannot remain with their parents, and a relative or close family friend steps in, often at short notice. As such, terms like ‘recruitment’ or ‘adequate levels’ do not apply in the same way. Instead, the department’s focus is on ensuring that when these situations arise, families are supported to step forward.