Two-thirds of councils don't require Personal Advisers for care leavers to have any accredited training or qualifications, research has found.

According to Become, the national charity for children in care and young care leavers, these gaps exist due to a ‘shocking lack of investment’ in the care leaver workforce.

While eligible young people are assigned a council-employed Personal Adviser (PA) to deliver support and guidance around future pathway planning, the research found that PAs are unevenly distributed across local authorities.

The report, titled ‘In Young People’s Corner: How Effective Personal Adviser Support Can Help End the Care Cliff’, highlights that roughly 20 young people were supported by every PA in 2025. It found that one in five councils had an average PA caseload that exceeded 25, while the highest individual caseload was recorded as 46 young people for one PA.

It also confirmed that most PAs do not have access to the sufficient tools, training, and time required to carry out their jobs to a high standard. For example, 67% of councils don't require PAs to have any accredited training or qualifications for PAs, nor are there any national training requirements.

Furthermore, the report unveiled that the Department for Education does not collect, require or hold data about the leaving care workforce – such as the number of PAs employed or funding distributed to Leaving Care services.

To help resolve these issues, the charity has urged the DfE to roll out a national strategy for the leaving care workforce which ensures that ‘consistent, person-centred, support’ is made available to young care leavers.

As part of the strategy, it has called for boosted and ringfenced funding for leaving care teams to recruit, develop and retain the right number of PAs. Additionally, the charity has advised the implementation of national professional standards for PAs, maximum caseload numbers, national pay and progression routes, and better specialist support and joint working with key services.

Further recommendations include the delivery of better support for young people’s rights and entitlements, the collection and publication of national workforce data, and more meaningful pathway planning for young people.

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Anela Anwar, CEO of Become, says: ‘For young people leaving care, their Personal Adviser is the one person who’s in their corner. Yet our report shows PAs are being expected to provide this essential support without any real investment in their role.

‘This is simply not good enough. The system is preventing PAs from giving young people the support they need, with consequences for their relationships, self-confidence and outcomes across all areas of their lives.

‘The Government must develop and implement a national strategy for the leaving care workforce, so PAs have the skills, knowledge, confidence, and resources to give every young person leaving care the consistent, person-centred support they need.’