Fostering reform: proposed changes to assessment and handling allegations of abuse

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Closes 17 Mar 2026

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About you

The following introductory questions will help us understand more about you and, where relevant, the nature of your business or organisation and the main ways in which you currently interact with foster care in England.

This will help us direct you to the questions that are most relevant to you and/or your organisation and analyse your responses. We know that not everyone will wish or feel able to answer all the questions in this call for evidence. However, you will still have the option to answer all the questions if you wish to do so.

1. Are you responding as an individual or on behalf of an organisation?

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  • If you are responding as an individual, we will consider the views within your response to this consultation to be your personal views.
  • If you are responding on behalf of an organisation, we will consider the views within your response to this consultation to be those of your organisation and not necessarily your personal views.
2. If you are responding as an individual, how would you describe yourself?

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If more than one applies, please select the one that you think is most important to understanding your consultation response.

3. If you are responding on behalf of an organisation, which of the following best describes who/which part of the sector your organisation represents?

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If more than one applies, please select the one that you think is most important to understanding your consultation response. Please only select that you are responding on behalf of an organisation if you are submitting the cleared and approved official response from the organisation. Individual responses should be submitted in the section previous.

4. What is your organisation's name?
5. What is your organisation's email address?
6. Is your organisation happy to be contacted directly about it's response?

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Please note: We may wish to contact you directly about your responses to help our understanding of the issues. If we do, we will use the email address you have given above.

7. Would you like us to keep your responses confidential?

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Confidentiality
Information provided in response to this consultation, including personal data, may be subject to publication or disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 2018, or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. If you want all, or any part, of a response to be treated as confidential please explain why you consider it to be confidential. If a request for disclosure of the information you have provided is received, your explanation about why you consider it confidential will be taken into account, but no assurance can be given that confidentiality can be maintained. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the Department.

Privacy
The personal data (name and address and any other identifying material) that you provide in response to this consultation is processed by the Department for Education as a data controller in accordance with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, and your personal information will only be used for the purposes of this consultation. The Department for Education relies upon the lawful basis of article 6 (1) (e) of the UK GDPR which allows us to process personal data when this is necessary for conducting consultations as part of our function.  Your information will not be shared with third parties unless the law allows or requires it. The personal information will be retained for a period of X (e.g. 10 years following the closure of the consultation period, after which it will be securely destroyed.  You can read more about what the Department for Education does when we ask for and hold your personal information in our personal information charter, which can be found here: Personal information charter - Department for Education - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

8. As the government analyses the consultation findings, we may identify direct quotes to include in the published government response – may we use your feedback in this way?