NAFP response to Renewing fostering

We welcome the government’s publication of Renewing fostering: homes for 10,000 more children and have been pleased to have been involved in its development. It reflects a clear acknowledgement of the scale of the challenges facing the fostering sector in England and the urgent need for systemic reform. The decline in fostering households over the past decade represents a serious risk to children’s outcomes and must be addressed with urgency, ambition and genuine partnership with the sector.

We are encouraged by the government’s commitment to expand fostering opportunities, simplify approval processes, strengthen regional collaboration and support innovation. But foster care is not right for everyone and we need to ensure that children and their safety are foremost in our minds when we consider an application to foster.  The renewed emphasis on improving support for foster families is essential - recruitment initiatives will only succeed if carers feel properly supported, recognised and sustained over the long term.

Independent fostering agencies (IFA) have already begun to turn the corner on foster carer recruitment. After several difficult years, evidence from across the IFA sector points to rising enquiry levels, stronger conversion through assessment and a stabilisation - and in some areas growth - in approved fostering households. This emerging recovery shows that when recruitment is properly resourced and paired with high-quality support, progress is achievable. These lessons should be actively drawn on as part of national reform.

However, recruitment alone will not solve the problem. IFAs know that retention of experienced carers, fair and transparent financial support, high quality training and responsive post-approval support are equally critical if fostering is to remain a viable and positive option for families.

As reform moves forward, it is essential that the long-standing structural divide between local authority fostering services and IFAs is addressed more directly. IFAs now care for nearly 50% of children in foster care, with nearly 50% of the foster carer workforce. The system cannot afford parallel approaches that compete for carers or operate in isolation. If regional care cooperatives (RCC) are to be part of the solution, then stronger, more formalised collaboration between local authorities/RCCs and IFAs must become the norm - focused on shared sufficiency planning, better use of existing foster homes and quicker access to the right foster carers for children. This will require national and local leadership, clear incentives for cooperation and a shift away from outdated adversarial cultures.

We welcome the opportunity to engage fully with the consultation on regulatory reform and forthcoming calls for evidence. The voices of those with direct experience - foster carers, children and young people, frontline practitioners and the range of services supporting children - must be central to shaping the next phase of fostering reform.

NAFP, whose members care for around 97% of children living with IFA foster carers, stands ready to work in close partnership with the Department for Education, local authorities and fostering services across the sector to ensure these proposals lead to lasting, meaningful change. Our shared responsibility is clear: to deliver safe, loving and stable homes for every child who needs them. Achieving that will require sustained commitment, investment and a genuine system-wide collaborative approach.

Renewing fostering: homes for 10,000 more children, DfE 4 February 2026