Asked by: Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have gone missing from (a) local authority and (b) foster care in each month in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only
The department takes the issue of any child going missing, either from home or from local authority care, extremely seriously. Local authorities are legally responsible for protecting all children, regardless of where they go missing from.
When a child is found, they must be offered an independent return interview and local authorities, police, and voluntary services should work together to build a comprehensive picture of why the child went missing and to understand what support they may need in the future to prevent them from going missing again.
The latest available information on children missing from care relates to the year ending 31 March 2022 and is available in the ‘Children looked after in England (including adoption): 2021 to 2022’ statistical release, at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d3f7d671-6341-4294-fa64-08db73cb8f1d. This data has been collected since 2014/15. The vast majority (90%) of missing incidents for all looked after children last for two days or less.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the ambition outlined in their Stable Homes, Built on Love: Implementation Strategy and Consultation, published in February, to "increase the number of care leavers going to university", what steps they will take to support access to safe and secure housing for care leavers when they are at university.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department gave a commitment in ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’ to work with the sector to develop a gold standard accreditation scheme for further education (FE) and higher education (HE) institutions. This covers all aspects of support for care experienced young people, including access to affordable year-round accommodation. Furthermore, local authorities are under a legal duty to ensure that any care leaver in full time residential FE or HE has suitable accommodation if they need it during a vacation.
As set out in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, the government is also committed to seeing an increase in the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation. The department is providing £99.8 million to local authorities in this Spending Review period to increase the number of care leavers that remain with their former foster families in a family home up to the age of 21, through the ‘Staying Put’ programme. We are also providing £53 million in this Spending Review period to increase the number of young people leaving care through the ‘Staying Close’ programme, providing an enhanced support package including an offer of move-on accommodation for young people leaving children’s homes and other forms of residential care.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take improve the level of foster carer retention.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department recognises the urgent need to change the way local authorities retain foster carers. We are investing over £3 million to deliver an initial fostering recruitment and retention programme in the North East Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance. As part of this, retention will be improved with the evidence-based model Mockingbird. Since 2014, the department has provided over £8 million to help embed the Mockingbird programme as an innovative model of peer support for foster parents and the children in their care. The department will then expand our recruitment and retention programme from 2023, by investing over £24 million.
The department will work to recruit and retain more foster carers where there are particular shortages. Depending on local need, this may include sibling groups, teenagers, unaccompanied asylum seeking children, other children who have suffered complex trauma or parent and child foster homes.
Additionally, the department continues to fund Fosterline and Fosterline Plus, a free-to-access helpline and support service for current and prospective foster carers, to provide high quality, independent information and advice on a range of issues.
In recognition of the increasing costs of living, we are also raising the National Minimum Allowance (NMA). Foster carers will benefit from a 12.43% increase to the NMA. This above inflation increase in allowance will help foster parents cover the increasing costs of caring for a child in their home.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what arrangements there are for the registration and regulation of private fostering agencies; whether there is a statutory basis for such registration and regulation; and whether other agencies and local authorities are informed of misconduct by an individual foster carer provided by a private fostering agency.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All independent fostering agencies (IFAs) are registered with Ofsted under the Care Standards Act 2000 and must meet the legal requirements set out in the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011. IFAs are inspected by Ofsted under the Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) on a three-year inspection cycle.
Under the National Minimum Standards IFAs have a duty to ensure the welfare of the children in care and a duty to work effectively in partnership with other agencies concerned with child protection, such as the responsible authority, schools, hospitals and general practitioners.
Serious incidents must be reported by IFAs to Ofsted, including any serious complaints about an approved foster parent. Local authorities must notify the Child Safeguarding Practice Review panel, and by extension the department and Ofsted, within five working days of becoming aware of a serious incident. These incidents are where abuse or neglect is known or suspected.
If a foster carer’s approval to foster is terminated, a copy of the notice must be sent to the responsible authority for any child placed by another local authority, and to the relevant local authority if the foster carer lives outside the area of the fostering service.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to make changes to the private residential care sector for children and young people.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Every child in care deserves to live in a home that meets their needs and keeps them safe. local authorities are responsible for ensuring there are enough places for their children in care and the department is supporting them to do this.
Whilst there are a variety of different types of providers who operate in this sector and who play a vital role in providing homes for children in care, it is not right that local authorities occasionally pay too much for placements. The Competition and Markets Authority study into Children’s Social Care placements identified a lack of placements of the right kind in the right places for children.
As set out in our Implementation Strategy, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, we are seeking to rebalance the market through investing in foster care and by providing £259 million of capital funding over the next parliament, to help local authorities develop more of their own children’s homes.
The department is keen to avoid ‘profiteering’ from any provider and wants to grow capacity. That is why we are supporting local authorities to expand their provision, which will reduce reliance on the private sector without reducing the number of placements. Our proposals on regional commissioning will also give regions greater buying power and put them in a stronger position when negotiating with private providers.
To ensure the resilience of both independent fostering agencies and children’s homes providers, the department will work with Ofsted and the sector to develop plans for a financial oversight regime. This will allow for greater financial transparency across the sector, for example on ownership, debt structures and profit making preventing sudden market exit, and ensuring that children continue to receive the care that they need.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the response to the Urgent Question on 24 January 2023 on Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children, Official Report column 861, what assessment she has made of the capacity of local authorities to offer foster care placements to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The following lines have been provided by the Department for Education as they have lead responsibility for this policy area:
The Department for Education is committed to ensuring that all Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children accommodated in hotels by the Home Office are transferred through the National Transfer Scheme to the care of a local authority as quickly as possible. DfE is also committed to ensuring that capacity challenges in local authorities are addressed, including through our forthcoming response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
DfE knows that the right type of foster care may not always be available at the time or in the areas it is needed, and that there is significant variability across regions of England. We also know that it is particularly difficult to find suitable foster homes for some groups of children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The department recognises the urgency of action in placement sufficiency and will work with local authorities on recruiting more foster carers and on improving the conversion rate from expressions of interest to approval. This will include local recruitment campaigns that build towards a national programme, to help ensure children have access to the right placements at the right time.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the response to the Urgent Question on 24 January 2023 on Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children, Official Report column 861, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the capacity issues referred to including the lack of (a) foster carers, (b) trained social workers and (c) local authority children’s home places; if she will quantify that assessment on a national basis; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department is committed to ensuring that all Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children accommodated in hotels by the Home Office are transferred through the National Transfer Scheme to the care of a local authority as quickly as possible. The department is also committed to ensuring that capacity challenges in local authorities are addressed, including through our forthcoming response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
The department knows that the right type of foster care may not always be available at the time or in the areas it is needed, and that there is significant variability across regions of England. We also know that it is particularly difficult to find suitable foster homes for some groups of children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The department recognises the urgency of action in placement sufficiency and will work with local authorities on recruiting more foster carers and on improving the conversion rate from expressions of interest to approval. This will include local recruitment campaigns that build towards a national programme, to help ensure children have access to the right placements at the right time.
It is encouraging to note that the number of children and family social workers in the workforce is increasing every year. This number has increased by more than 14% from 28,500 in 2017, to 32,500 in 2021. The department is working closely with local authorities to recognise and understand workforce pressures. The department is also using central programmes and funding to respond to local authority needs. Over the current spending review period, we will continue to invest more than £50 million every year on recruiting, training, and developing social workers to ensure the workforce has the capacity, skills, and knowledge to support and protect vulnerable children.
The department is supporting local authorities to meet their statutory duties through £259 million of capital funding over the next Parliament. This will help to maintain capacity and expand provision in secure and open residential children’s homes, providing high-quality, safe homes for some of our most vulnerable children and young people across England.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support children in foster care to attain a university education.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Every local authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care, wherever they live or are educated. Looked-after children draw Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,410 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, to work with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their personal education plan (PEP). The PEP should set out the support needed to help realise the short and long-term academic outcomes for each child, and should focus on the child’s strengths, weaknesses, and outcomes they want to achieve, including attaining a higher education placement.
In October 2021 the department launched a £3 million pilot in 30 local authorities for Virtual School Heads to provide targeted support to looked-after children and care leavers in further education. This has now been extended, with an additional £5 million of funding now supporting a total of 58 local authorities in 2022/23.
Furthermore, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care has made a number of recommendations to increase the proportion of care leavers in higher education. The department is carefully considering the recommendations made in the review, and will publish a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy early in early 2023.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to help ensure that those people who (a) adopt, (b) foster or (c) provide kinship care for children receive timely support in respect of their own wellbeing.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Local authorities must appoint an adviser to give advice and information to people affected by adoption, including adoptive parents. The adviser must also signpost appropriate services and give guidance on how those services may be accessed. The Adoption Support Fund is available where children and families are in particular need of help.
Fostering services: national minimum standards (NMS), outlines that fostering service providers must ensure foster carers receive the support and supervision they need in order to care properly for children placed with them. This includes supporting peer support, foster care associations and/or self-help groups for foster carers. It should also include providing foster carers with breaks from caring as appropriate, and effective out of hours advice and support.
The NMS also requires that all foster carers have access to adequate social work and other professional support, information and advice, to enable them to provide consistent, high quality care to the child.
The department funds Fosterline to provide independent, confidential and impartial advice on fostering issues aimed at supporting existing and prospective carers. Fosterline can be contacted on 0800 040 7675 or by visiting their website at: http://www.fosterline.info.
The government issued statutory guidance in 2011 for local authorities about supporting family and friends providing care for children who cannot live with their parents. The guidance states that children and young people should receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. It explains that support, including financial support, can be provided under section 17 of the Children Act 1989. There is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide. The local authority should have in place clear eligibility criteria in relation to the provision of support services.
The department also supports kinship carers through a contract with the charity Kinship, which will see us establish up to 100 peer to peer support groups across England by January 2024.
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care made a set of recommendations which aim to improve the support kinship carers receive. The department will respond to the review in early 2023.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the independent review of children’s social care final report, published in May 2022, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of providing kinship carers with (a) paid time off work when a child starts living with them and (b) financial allowances at the same rate as foster carers.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department recognises the invaluable and important role that kinship carers play in their kin children’s lives. The recently published Independent Review of Children’s Social Care set out recommendations on how the government can better support kinship families.
The department is now considering how to take these recommendations forward, including the recommendations to create a financial allowance and a new paid parental leave entitlement for kinship carers.
The department is working on an ambitious and comprehensive response to the recommendations in the review.