In February 2026, the Department for Education launched a call for evidence as part of the fostering action plan, ‘Renewing fostering: homes for 10,000 more children’. The call for evidence focused on areas they want to gather further information from the sector about for possible future reforms to the fostering system. This included:
- Financial transparency
- A foster care register
- Amending the fostering limit
- DBS checks and vetting for prospective foster carers
- Consistency in handling allegations
- Innovation and removing barriers for kinship care.
Our response to this call for evidence is based on the views of our members which we gathered through a focus group on a national foster care register attended by 74 fostering services and foster carers, a member survey with 109 responses along with our professional knowledge based our regular interaction with our members.
In our response we expressed support for greater financial transparency across fostering but highlighted the greater need for an improved financial offer for foster carers. We also welcomed proposals for a national foster care register, which we believe would strengthen matching, enhance safeguarding, and support greater portability and professionalisation for foster carers with the correct considerations taken into account.
We also highlighted concerns about the current DBS system, which remains inconsistent, lacks essential soft intelligence, varies significantly across regions, and often results in avoidable safeguarding gaps and delays.