Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of enabling care leavers to continue to live with their carers by extending funding for the Staying Close scheme.

The department has recently announced funding of £36 million over the next three years to extend the Staying Close programme, so that more care leavers leaving children’s homes get move-on accommodation and support from a trusted adult.

Since the 2017/18 financial year, Staying Close has been piloted by five local authorities and three private children’s homes providers. Independent evaluations of the Staying Close pilots were published in November 2020 and reported that Staying Close is helping to provide young people with smoother transitions from residential care to adulthood.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care has also recommended that Staying Close should be a legal entitlement, and extended to age 23. The department is now considering the recommendations carefully and will publish an implementation strategy later this year.