Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards are in place to ensure that people that apply to be foster carers during the covid-19 outbreak are (a) vetted and (b) trained to ensure the safety of the children in their care.

The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 provide a regulatory framework for fostering agencies and local authority fostering services for how they should deliver their functions. The regulations set out the information that fostering service providers must gather about prospective foster carers in order to satisfy themselves of an individual’s suitability to foster. This includes background, health, relationships and criminal checks, for example. It is for these providers to determine how they assess and approve their foster carers locally, within the regulations. The regulations are available here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/581/contents/made.

We recognise that fostering services may want to bring in more foster carers to help build capacity within their services in case of additional demand at this time. In order to assist fostering providers to do this, we have amended parts of the regulatory framework, as described in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, which are available here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/445/pdfs/uksiem_20200445_en.pdf.

These allow different parts of the assessment to be undertaken simultaneously, avoiding unnecessary delays. However, the information required in assessing potential foster carers has not been changed nor have the expectations around the preparation of approved foster carers, prior to their first placement.