Recommendation 30

The Department for Education should fund the planned recruitment hubs to set up Mockingbird constellations in every local authority. The Department should work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that housing policy is designed to support the recruitment of foster carers. This should include: investing in and scaling up innovative housing programmes such as Room Makers; giving approved foster carers priority for a move to a larger home if needed; enabling local authorities to fund housing extensions and adaptations for foster carers; and enabling local authorities to use the planning system to secure larger social homes for allocation to eligible social housing tenants who are approved as foster carers. (Recommendation, Paragraph 74)