Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help support care leavers to find a home when they leave local authority care.

Supporting care leavers to make a successful transition from care to independence is a priority for this government. Care leavers face barriers to securing and maintaining affordable housing, which is why the department committed to delivering the actions within ‘Mission 5’ of the Care Review implementation plan to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness by 2027.

This commitment includes bringing forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, for ‘Staying Put’ to support young people for longer and for ‘Staying Close’ to be a national entitlement, recognising that young people in the general population are leaving home at older ages. The department will also bring forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, to remove the local connection requirement for care leavers seeking access to social housing at the next available opportunity.

The government is providing funding for the following programmes in the current spending review period (2022/2025) to support care leavers to find suitable accommodation. This includes:

• £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.
• £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.
• £3 million this and next financial year to deliver extra support for care leavers at highest risk of rough sleeping.

Ofsted inspects the adequacy of the support provided by local authorities for care leavers. In January 2023, Ofsted introduced a new, separate judgement in the inspection framework for local authority children’s services, specifically assessing the experiences and progress of care leavers.

​Alongside this, a care leaver Ministerial Board, co-chaired by the Secretaries of State for the Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, brings together relevant Ministers from across government to consider what more can be done to improve outcomes for care leavers and to help to achieve the five care-leavers-related ‘Missions’ as set out in the government’s children’s social care strategy, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. This includes looking to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness.