The number of fostering households in England has fallen for the fourth consecutive year, despite a £36m investment in recruiting and retaining carers from 2023-25.
As of March 2025, 42,190 households were approved to foster, down 1% on the year before, according to annual data published by Ofsted today .
There was also a 1% fall in the number of mainstream, non-kinship households - those approved to care for a range of children - whose number dropped from 33,745 to 33,435. Their number has also fallen every year since 2021, when it stood at 37,325, with a fall of 10.4% over the past four years.
This was true of the number of approved mainstream foster carers (56,345) - which was down 11.8% since 2021 and 1.3% since 2024 - and the number of approved mainstream places (69,825), which has fallen by 9.2% since 2021 and 0.9% since 2024.
The number of filled mainstream places, meanwhile, has fallen more quickly, by 2%, since 2024, from 42,870 to 42,015. Since 2021, the number of mainstream filled places is down by 6.1%.
Meanwhile, though the number of kinship foster households rose in 2022-23 to 2023-24, it fell back in 2024-25, from 8,865 to 8,755.
The figures come despite successive governments spending £36m from 2023-25 in a fostering recruitment and retention programme, which is being followed by a £15m investment in the same.
The challenge facing Josh MacAlister
The data also illustrates the scale of the challenge facing children's minister Josh MacAlister in achieving his objectives of significantly boosting the number of foster carers in England, in order to both give children a choice of placement and reduce the numbers going into residential care.
The number of children placed in residential care has grown each year since at least 2018-19, despite the care population falling in the past two years, according to separately published Department for Education figures.
The proportion of looked-after children placed in children's homes has risen from 9% to 12% since 2021, during which time the share in foster care has fallen from 71% to 67%.
MacAlister has pledged to invest "tens of millions" in an upcoming fostering plan, containing "a comprehensive set of measures" to boost the number of carers. It is not clear how far the funding will go beyond the £25m already allocated from 2026-28 to recruit an additional 400 carers and some capital funding, available from 2026-29, to help foster families provide more places, for example by extending their homes.
£36m fostering investment fails to deliver
However, the latest Ofsted data suggests that the £36m invested from 2023-25 in regional fostering recruitment and retention programmes has failed to bear fruit. These comprise three elements:
- A fostering recruitment support hub, providing an information and support service to help prospective carers from their initial enquiry to making an application.
- A communications campaign to drive interest in fostering across the region and increase the number of enquiries received by the hub.
- Expanding the ‘Mockingbird model’, developed by the Fostering Network in the UK, under which “constellations” of fostering households provide mutual support to one another, led by an experienced carer who provides a ‘hub home’ for the others. A 2020 evaluation of the scheme for the DfE found that households who participated in Mockingbird were 82% less likely to deregister than households who did not.
While the number of initial enquiries from prospective fostering households increased by 14.3% from 2023-24 (131,055) to 2024-25 (149,795), the number of applications to foster fell year on year, from 8,495 to 8,290.
Though the number of mainstream households whose applications were approved increased, from 4,055 in 2023-24 to 4,430 in 2024-25, this was still outstripped by the number deregistering during the year (4,690).
IFAs increase share of households
For the third year in a row, the number of mainstream households approved by independent fostering agencies (IFAs) - 2,375 in 2024-25 - exceeded those approved by local authorities (2,060), though both figures rose year on year.
Also, for at least the fifth consecutive year, there were fewer deregistrations from IFAs (2,150) than councils (2,540).
While the number of mainstream households approved by councils continued to fall - from 18,860 to 18,415 in the year to 31 March 2025 - there was a rise, from 14,890 to 15,020 in the number of approved by IFAs.
The independent sector now accounts for 44.9% of mainstream households, up from 42.2% in 2022.
MacAlister: reversing fostering decline 'a personal priority
On the back of the figures, MacAlister said: “This government inherited a burning platform on this issue with the number of foster carers in decline, as ][[the data from Ofsted shows, but it is a personal priority of mine to grip this issue and deliver for the vulnerable children waiting for a foster care placement.
“We will be publishing a detailed plan to improve and expand fostering very soon which will map out how we reverse the decline that is seeing far too many children forced to live far from home in care homes, instead of a loving family environment."
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