POINT 61/100 — DOES THE APPLICATION PROCESS MOVE THEM FORWARD — OR MAKE THEM START AGAIN?
POINT 61/100 — DOES THE APPLICATION PROCESS MOVE THEM FORWARD — OR MAKE THEM START AGAIN?
There is a moment in Foster Carer Recruitment that should feel significant.
The prospective Foster Carer has made an enquiry.
They have spoken to the recruitment team.
They may have asked numerous questions.
The service has started to understand them.
They have received information about fostering.
An Initial Visit has taken place.
Their household circumstances, motivation, understanding and potential offer may already have been discussed in considerable detail.
They have then made an informed decision:
Yes. I want to apply.
That ought to feel like progression.
Yet in some fostering services, what happens next can feel remarkably like going back to the beginning.
A large application form arrives.
Name.
Address.
Household members.
Employment.
Previous relationships.
Children.
Previous fostering applications.
Motivation.
Accommodation.
And potentially numerous other questions that the person may reasonably feel they have already answered.
This raises an important question for Point 61 of The 100-Point Foster Carer Recruitment Review:
HOW MUCH OF OUR APPLICATION PROCESS IS ACTUALLY REQUIRED — AND HOW MUCH HAVE WE DESIGNED OURSELVES?
That distinction matters.
FIRST: WHAT DOES THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK ACTUALLY REQUIRE?
This is where we need to be precise.
Regulation 26 of the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011, as amended in 2013, provides that where a person applies to become a foster parent and the fostering service decides to assess their suitability, the assessment must be carried out in accordance with the regulation.
The regulations then require the fostering service to obtain specified information about the applicant, their household and family, as well as undertake the appropriate checks, references and other enquiries.
These requirements are important.
They exist for good reason.
Nobody should interpret this Point as arguing that a fostering service should obtain less information than is necessary to assess someone safely and properly.
But there is another point that is just as important.
I can find no requirement in Regulation 26 or the current statutory assessment guidance prescribing a particular large or separate fostering application form.
The regulation describes what the fostering service must do once a person applies and the service decides to assess them.
The statutory guidance goes further and says that once an applicant has contacted the fostering service to which they are applying, the information required under Regulation 26(1A) should be sought as soon as possible.
That distinction is potentially significant.
THE INFORMATION MAY BE REQUIRED.
THE REPETITION MAY NOT BE.
A fostering service can, of course, use an application form.
There may be very good reasons to do so.
It may provide a clear declaration of the applicant's intention to proceed.
It may capture information not previously obtained.
It may facilitate necessary consent, declarations and administrative processes.
It can create an auditable point at which an enquiry becomes an application.
The question is not:
Should application forms be banned?
The question is:
HAS YOUR APPLICATION FORM BECOME A SUBSTITUTE FOR ORGANISATIONAL MEMORY?
WHAT DID WE ALREADY ASK?
This is where Foster Carer Recruitment needs to look backwards before asking the applicant to move forwards.
By application stage, the service may already know a considerable amount.
That information may have been gathered through the enquiry, initial telephone conversation, follow-up discussions and Initial Visit.
Imagine that the applicant has already spent 90 minutes in their home talking to a member of your fostering service.
Then two days later they receive a form asking:
Why do you want to foster?
From the organisation's perspective, this may simply be another document.
From the applicant's perspective, there is an obvious response:
I've already told you.
That matters because it sends a subtle message.
Perhaps the conversations they have already had were not recorded.
Perhaps the person they spoke to is not part of what happens next.
Perhaps the organisation has not listened.
Perhaps they really are starting again.
None of those may actually be true.
But process design communicates something about the organisation.
GOVERNMENT RESEARCH HAS ALREADY IDENTIFIED THIS PROBLEM
The Department for Education's 2023 research into Foster Carer Recruitment and conversion rates provides unusually direct evidence on this issue.
Participants described prospective Foster Carers being asked for the same information at multiple points — including the enquiry form, home visit, application form and assessment.
The research suggested that information gathered at one stage should be available to colleagues later in the recruitment process so that applicants feel heard rather than feeling that their time has been wasted.
That research was a small qualitative study involving five local authorities and five independent fostering agencies, so its findings should not be treated as statistically representative of every fostering service in England. The researchers themselves explicitly state that limitation.
But the issue it identifies is very practical.
And it is testable in every individual fostering service.
Take your own application form.
Put it beside:
- your enquiry information;
- your initial-call record;
- your Initial Visit template;
- your application paperwork; and
- the information subsequently passed to assessment.
Now identify every question that appears more than once.
You may be surprised.
APPLICATION SHOULD BE A GATEWAY, NOT A SECOND ENQUIRY
There is a conceptual problem here.
Some services appear to treat the application as the point at which the applicant becomes sufficiently important to create the "real" record.
Everything before that sits in recruitment.
Everything afterwards sits in assessment.
The result can be two parallel histories of the same household.
That is precisely what this Review should challenge.
The principle developed earlier in the series remains relevant:
ONE HOUSEHOLD. ONE JOURNEY RECORD. MANY TOUCHPOINTS.
The journey does not stop being the same journey because a different professional or team becomes involved.
If information obtained during recruitment is relevant and lawfully available to the assessment process, it should travel forward.
That does not mean an Assessing Social Worker must accept every previous statement without further exploration.
They may need to verify information.
They may need considerably greater detail.
They may need to explore apparent inconsistencies.
They may need to revisit an issue because its significance is different within a formal assessment.
That is professional assessment.
But that is different from asking someone the same question simply because the previous team did not pass the answer on.
THERE ARE THREE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS
It helps to separate them.
1. APPLICATION
The person formally indicates that they want to proceed towards assessment.
2. REQUIRED INFORMATION AND CHECKS
The fostering service obtains the information, checks, references and evidence required by Regulation 26 and Schedule 3.
3. PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT
The Assessing Social Worker explores, tests, analyses and evaluates the applicant's suitability to Foster.
These interact.
But they are not identical.
An unnecessarily complicated application form should not be confused with rigorous assessment.
And simplifying application administration should not be confused with weakening assessment.
THE CURRENT NATIONAL DIRECTION MAKES THIS EVEN MORE RELEVANT
The Government's Renewing Fostering: homes for 10,000 more children, published in February 2026, identifies recruitment and assessment as areas requiring improvement.
Among the features associated with applicants progressing from enquiry towards approval, the Government specifically identifies timely and responsive applications that maintain momentum, reliable points of contact and clear information about the process.
It also states that unnecessary or inflexible barriers can discourage prospective carers from continuing.
That is important.
It reinforces a central theme of this Review:
THE SERVICE SHOULD BE FAST. THE PERSON SHOULD NOT FEEL RUSHED.
Simplification does not mean pushing somebody into assessment before they are ready.
Quite the opposite.
The Initial Visit should already have helped them make an informed decision.
Once that decision is made, the organisation should be capable of acting on it efficiently.
WHAT COULD A BETTER APPLICATION TRANSITION LOOK LIKE?
Imagine a different process.
At the end of the Initial Visit, both sides agree that progressing appears appropriate.
The applicant is asked whether they wish formally to apply.
The organisation then brings forward information already gathered.
The applicant sees what is held, where appropriate, and confirms or corrects relevant factual information.
Any missing information needed to begin the formal process is collected.
Necessary consents, declarations and checks are initiated.
The applicant is told clearly:
Here is what you have already completed.
Here is what we need next.
Here is why we need it.
Here is what happens when we receive it.
The Assessing Social Worker still undertakes the assessment.
Nothing about that professional responsibility has been diluted.
But the applicant experiences continuity.
That is the difference.
THE ATTRITION CONTEXT CANNOT BE IGNORED
Ofsted's latest completed-year fostering statistics underline why every transition matters.
Of 5,370 fostering applications recorded as completed during 2024–25:
2,050 — 38% — resulted in approval.
3,290 — 61% — were withdrawn.
30 — 1% — were rejected.
Of the withdrawn applications, 2,175 were recorded as applicant withdrawals and 1,115 as service withdrawals.
These figures must be treated carefully.
They are not a simple cohort conversion rate. Applications completed during the reporting year will not all necessarily have started during that same year.
Nor should we assume that every withdrawal represents failure.
Applicants' circumstances change.
Applicants discover that fostering is not right for them.
Services identify appropriate reasons why an assessment should not proceed.
Good recruitment should sometimes result in a well-informed no.
However, Ofsted provides another particularly relevant statistic.
Among applications that started during the year and were withdrawn by the applicant by year-end, 20% recorded the fostering process not being what the applicant expected as the reason for withdrawal.
That should concern recruitment leaders.
Because at least some attrition is about the experience of the process itself.
HERE IS THE TEST…
Take the application process used by your service and audit it from the applicant's perspective.
TestQuestion to answer -
The Legal Requirement Test Which fields or actions are required by regulation, statutory guidance, checks or another clear compliance requirement?
The Already-Known Test Which questions have already been answered during enquiry, initial call or Initial Visit?
The Purpose Test If information is being asked again, what is the specific reason? Verification? Updating? Consent? Deeper assessment? Or simply duplication?
The Applicant Effort Test How long does your application actually take an applicant to complete? Have you ever tested it?
The Abandonment Test How many people are invited to apply but never submit the application? Do you know why?
The Delay Test What is the median number of days between agreement to proceed following Initial Visit and formal application?
The Accessibility Test Can applicants complete the process easily by the methods they can realistically use? What happens if digital access, literacy, disability or language creates difficulty?
The Transfer Test Does information already collected automatically travel into the next stage or does another team begin again?
The Explanation Test Does the applicant understand why each new piece of information is required?
The Momentum Test Once someone says “yes, I want to apply”, how quickly does something meaningful happen?
Then ask one final question:
IF WE REMOVED EVERYTHING THAT IS DUPLICATED, HISTORIC OR UNNECESSARY, WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE LEFT?
That is not a recommendation to remove required information.
It is a recommendation to know the difference.
APPLICATION IS A MOMENT OF COMMITMENT
From a recruitment perspective, application is important.
The prospective Foster Carer has crossed another threshold.
They have moved from considering fostering towards asking to be assessed to do it.
That decision deserves an organisational response that says:
We know who you are.
We remember the conversations we've already had.
We are now moving forward.
Not:
Here is another form. Start again.
The principle for Point 61 is therefore simple:
APPLYING SHOULD MARK PROGRESSION — NOT A RESTART.
And that leads directly to Point 62.
Because once the application has been made, another major transition takes place:
What happens when recruitment hands the applicant into assessment?