Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what programmes exist to support 18 year olds leaving the care system.

As set out in the Children Act 1989, local authorities have the primary responsibility for supporting care leavers. The 2017 Children and Social Work Act imposed a new duty on local authorities to consult on and publish their ‘local offer’ for care leavers, setting out their legal entitlements and any further discretionary support that the local authority provides, such as Council Tax exemptions.

All care leavers up to the age of 25 are entitled to support from a personal adviser to help with access support from mainstream services, such as housing, health, and benefits. Personal advisors also provide practical and emotional support to help them prepare for and cope with the challenges of living independently.

The department is providing over £230 million over this spending review to support young people leaving care with housing, access to education, employment, and training, and to help them develop social connections and networks to avoid loneliness and isolation.

To support young people leaving the care system the department has:

• Launched the care leaver covenant. 400 businesses are signed up and are offering opportunities to care leavers. Businesses include John Lewis, Sky and Amazon.
• Established the Civil Service care leaver internship scheme, which has led to over 880 care leavers taking up paid jobs across government.
• Committed £8 million since October 2021 to run a pilot in 58 local authority areas, for virtual school heads to use Pupil Premium Plus (PP+) to provide targeted support to looked-after children and care leavers in further education. The department will provide a further £24 million of PP+ funding between 2023 and 2025 to expand this programme.
• Increased the Leaving Care Allowance from £2,000 to £3,000 from 1 April 2023 to enable the young person to furnish their first home.
• Committed to increasing the care leaver apprenticeship bursary from August 2023 from £1,000 to £3,000. Local authorities must provide a £2,000 bursary for care leavers who go to university.
• The department is providing £99.8 million to local authorities to increase the number of care leavers that stay living with their foster families in a family home up to the age of 21 through the ‘Staying Put’ programme.
• The department are providing £53 million to increase the number of young people leaving residential care who receive practical help with move-on accommodation, including ongoing support from a keyworker, through the ‘Staying Close’ programme.
• The department are providing an additional £3.2 million to local authorities per year to provide extra support to care leavers at highest risk of rough sleeping.

Our ambitions for reform, set out in the ‘stable homes, built on love’ strategy and consultation, put loving and stable relationships at the heart of children’s social care. This includes the mission that by 2027, every care-experienced child and young person will feel that they have strong, loving relationships in place.

As outlined in ‘stable homes, built on love’ the department is providing over £30 million in the next two years to significantly increase the number of local authorities with family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes. The department also wants to increase the accessibility and take-up of the Independent Visitors offer by working with the sector to reinforce current good practice and developing standards for Independent Visitor services. Additionally, the department is assessing levels of interest in introducing a way for care-experienced people to legally formalise a lifelong bond with someone they care about, such as a former foster carer or family friend. The ‘stable homes, built on love’ consultation is attached.