Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with Surrey County Council on promoting foster caring in Surrey Heath constituency.

This government is committed to working in partnership with local authorities to recruit more foster carers and committed an additional £15 million in the budget. This funding is to start work to ensure every local authority has access to a hub and to embed the existing regional fostering recruitment and retention hubs, covering over 60% of local authorities in England. The hubs will transform the way people who are interested in fostering are supported and rollout of the Mockingbird programme, which offers peer-support to foster carers and the children in their care. Surrey County Council is part of the Fostering South East recruitment hub which officially launched in 2024, bringing together 20 local authorities.

The department is also funding Fosterlink, a support service for local authority fostering services not in the regional programme. This identifies areas for improvement and creates a national network to share best practice.