Foster Care: Care Leavers

(asked on 29th March 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) data and (b) methodology her Department uses to calculate the level of funding for staying put arrangements.


Answered by
Edward Timpson Portrait
Edward Timpson
This question was answered on 21st April 2017

The Children and Families Act 2014 introduced a new duty on local authorities to support young people to continue to live with their former foster carers once they turn 18 (the ‘Staying Put’ duty). The duty came into force in May 2014.

The funding amounts allocated to local authorities since the introduction of the duty are listed below:

Financial year

Staying Put Grant, total payment

2014-15

£7.4m

2015-16

£14.8m

2016-17

£22.2m

These totals were calculated using information from an independent evaluation of a pilot of the staying put initiative and evidence from the annual children looked after return on the numbers of children ceasing to be looked after from foster care placements each year.

The annual children looked after return is also used to allocate annual grant allocations across local authorities each year. The allocation is based on the number of looked after children who were in foster care placements in each local authority at the time of their 18th birthday.

In ‘Keep on caring: supporting young people from care to independence,’ published in July 2016, the Department for Education announced that funding to local authorities to implement Staying Put will continue over the life of this Parliament, using the £22.2m provided in 2016/17 as the baseline.

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