Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve levels of care for children in social care.

The department announced the biggest overhaul to children’s social care in a generation to ensure opportunity for all children. This includes increased investment and landmark legislation through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Our policy statement ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’, published in November 2024, outlines our vision and core legislative proposals. We will shift the focus of the children's social care system to early support to keep families together.

Implementing the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will improve levels of care for children in social care, as it is a key step towards delivering the government’s Opportunity Mission. It will break the link between young people’s background and their future success, to shift the focus of the children's social care system to earlier support for children and families, and to tackle profiteering in the care market and put children needs first.

Our plans will ensure:

• Children can remain with their families where possible.
• We will support more children to live with kinship carers or in fostering families.
• We will support children in care and care leavers, including rolling out the ‘Staying Close’ programme.
• We will delivery stronger multi-agency approaches to support families and keep children safe.
• We will fix the broken care market to tackle profiteering and put children first.