Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the provision of financial education for children in care.

All children in care receive financial education at school. In 2014, financial literacy was made statutory within the citizenship curriculum for 11 to 16-year-olds. Pupils are taught the functions and uses of money, the importance of personal budgeting, money management and the need to understand financial risk. The new mathematics curriculum also teaches young people about the importance of personal budgeting, money management and financial risks. Some schools also include the teaching of financial education in their personal, social, health and economic education provision.

However, we recognise that care leavers will often have to deal with the challenges of living independently, including managing their money, at a much earlier age than their peers. Statutory guidance therefore sets expectations on how local authorities should support children in care and care leavers to develop their financial literacy.

The statutory guidance for children in care - ‘The Children Act (1989) guidance and regulations volume 2: care planning, placement and case review’ - makes clear that the young person’s experience of care should support him or her to develop the skills and competences that they will need when they reach legal adulthood and will no longer be looked-after.

This expectation is reinforced in the statutory guidance on leaving care - ‘The Children Act (1989) guidance and regulations volume 3: planning transition to adulthood for care leavers’ - which requires local authorities to support care leavers to manage their financial resources and money, gradually helping them to take responsibility for themselves; and says that they must place an early emphasis on financial literacy and financial capability skills when developing the young person’s ‘Pathway plan’.

Ofsted inspects the quality of local authority children’s services and reports on the quality of support provided to children in care and care leavers, including the extent to which local authorities are adequately supporting them for the challenges of living independently.