Charities push for Staying Put
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Better funding and tackling bureaucracy are needed to help more over-18s stay with their foster carer.
At first glance, latest Department for Education figures suggests there has been steady progress in the use of Staying Put arrangements over the past two years.
The proportion of care leavers aged 18 to 20 who remain living with their foster carer through the Staying Put scheme rose by 1.4 percentage points to 38 per cent across all ages in the year up to 31 March 2020, according to the DfE’s looked-after children data published in December (see graphics).
However, some care charities, while supporting the scheme, are not impressed by the increase. They say the levels of uptake are too low, blaming inadequate funding and bureaucratic procedures that deter foster carers from applying for it. They are calling for policymakers to tackle the barriers and to set ambitious targets to double the number of care leavers staying with foster carers within five years.
The latest data shows that in 2019/20, 58 per cent of 18-year-olds were still living with their foster carer three months after their 18th birthday. This fell to 34 per cent of 19-year-olds and 22 per cent of 20-year-olds.
Future funding
Charity Action for Children has called for a significant uplift in support from government if take-up rates are to be sustained and improved. In its recent Staying Put Six Years On report, it put forward a range of options on a sliding scale of ambitions: from £82m annually to pay foster carers an allowance to cover their costs and a fee to reflect their expertise, to £58m to cover the amount councils currently spend on Staying Put placements.
The charity also suggests introducing a standard national allowance. This is favoured by care leaver charity Become. Its chief executive Katherine Sacks-Jones, says: “The government needs to introduce and appropriately fund a minimum allowance for Staying Put carers and the promised Care Review must look at issues around funding of this scheme.
“With sustainable and sufficient funding from the DfE, we can ensure more children can benefit from and thrive in Staying Put arrangements. Without it, we risk growing numbers of care leavers experiencing a care cliff at 18.”
However, Ford remains to be convinced, despite highlighting how young people in Staying Put placements are “twice as likely to go to university and half as likely to be not in education, employment or training compared to all care leavers”.
“The government does not believe that introducing a national minimum allowance for Staying Put carers is the right way forward,” she said in a recent parliamentary answer on the issue.
“Unlike children in foster care, young people in Staying Put arrangements are adults, and may be in work or claiming benefits. These sources of income can be used to contribute to the cost of providing the Staying Put arrangement in a similar way that young people who are still living at home with their parents may contribute to the costs of running the household. The level of financial support that Staying Put carers receive should be agreed on a case-by-case basis.”
The government’s policy requiring young people who want to stay put to apply for housing benefit is “particularly toxic”, according to Tact Fostering and Adoption, which blames the low uptake “entirely down to the DfE deliberately underfunding Staying Put”.
“Staying Put is an excellent policy that has been appallingly implemented – civil service over bureaucratisation poisoned it from the start,” says Tact chief executive Andy Elvin.
Rejections and delays
By shifting DfE costs for the scheme to housing benefit, it means foster children and carers “have to navigate the byzantine housing benefit forms”, explains Elvin. “This always leaves foster carers out of pocket for many months and often leads to claims being rejected or delayed.
“Unless this changes, we will never see rates of take-up rise, and that is why the DfE should be set an ambitious target of 50 per cent of take-up by 2022/23 and 75 per cent by 2025/26 so that they are forced to engage with the issues that are undermining Staying Put.
“Carers want to offer Staying Put – at present, their goodwill, sense of duty and guilt is being knowingly played on by the DfE.”
The Fostering Network is also calling for a fundamental review of Staying Put arrangements.
“The Care Review must include Staying Put, with a focus on embedding it into every aspect of care planning from the earliest possible stage,” says Izzy Roberts, campaigns and engagement officer at the network. “It should ensure foster carers have the resources, training and support to be able to offer Staying Put to people who could benefit from it.”
AT-A-GLANCE GUIDE TO STAYING PUT ARRANGEMENTS
At the time of its introduction in 2014, Staying Put was hailed as a ground-breaking policy that would improve stability for young people and help their transition from care to independent living. Introduced through the Children and Families Act 2014, it places a duty on councils to support looked-after children who want to remain with their foster carer until they are 21.
The DfE allocated £42.4m for councils to cover the cost of Staying Put for the first three years. Despite this investment, the proportion of young people staying put fell from 54 per cent in 2015/16 to 46 per cent a year later. An injection of additional funding from the DfE – grants to councils rose to £33.2m in 2020/21 – has seen take-up bounce back over the past three years.
However, how the scheme is funded in the long term is unclear. In a recent parliamentary answer, children’s minister Vicky Ford said funding for 2021/22 was being decided as part of the DfE’s “internal Spending Review discussions”.