Foster Care: Care Leavers
(asked on 2nd September 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate has he made of the number of care leavers required to claim universal credit to subsidise their staying put placement.
Since its introduction in May 2014, the department has provided new burdens funding each year to local authorities to implement ‘Staying Put’, as set out in the table below:
Financial year | Amount of funding given to local authorities to implement ‘Staying Put’ |
2014-15 | £7.4 million |
2015-16 | £14.8 million |
2016-17 | £22.2 million |
2017-18 | £22.85 million |
2018-19 | £23.3 million |
2019-20 | £23.77 million |
Total | £114.32 million |
Decisions on funding beyond March 2020 will be subject to the department’s Spending Review settlement.
Funding for each Staying Put arrangement - including whether the young person should contribute to the cost of the placement through income they receive from earnings or benefits - is agreed on a case-by-case basis and is not reported to the department. Consequently, the information requested on whether young people are required to claim benefits to subsidise the Staying Put arrangement is not available.