Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

Hi,
My granddaughter has lived with myself and my wife from birth, her mother lived together with us initially but due to mental and alcohol issues social services said that she had to leave the family home. My granddaughter was 4 years old when my daughter had to leave she is now 8 years old.

Social Services were involved during pregnancy because of issues with her father. They then stepped away when he was out of the picture altogether.
They became involved again when my daughters mental health started to deteriorate. After my daughter had to move out we were advised to take out a CAO but during the process were advised to 'upgrade' to an SGO, which we did and were granted.

Basically i have put in a complaint (following the template letter etc) to social services that i should have been receiving a foster allowance from the time my daughter left our home up until the SGO was granted.
After a phone call today it looks as though they are going to reject the complaint as they are saying we had an agreement that we would care for our granddaughter prior to our daughter having to leave the family home.

I have read on a different thread on here that a recent court judgement states:

“an offer or action by a relative or friend to care for the child after the duty [to look after the child] has arisen will not prevent the child being 'looked after' for the purposes of the Children Act 1989”. In addition, if children’s services are just helping to facilitate a purely private family arrangement, they should make it clear to the relative that this is what is happening, and that they need to look to the child’s parents for financial support.

I clicked on the short cut to the "recent court judgement" but could not find the quote I've copied above. Could you please give me any further advice on how to back up my claim and also where to find the court judgement to maybe use in future correspondence?

thanks

Dear Jarrovian,

Thank you for your post. You are in dispute with the local authority as to whether your granddaughter should have been considered a looked after child after your daughter left home and before a Special Guardianship Order was granted. You are asking if there is anything that you can use in correspondence with the local authority and whether there is any case law you can quote.

We do have some information about this on our website. For ease of reference I have copied and pasted it below, but you can also follow this link HERE.

When is an arrangement a private family arrangement and when is it kinship foster care?

What does the law say?

The law says that:
1. If children’s services play a major role in making the arrangements for the child, the most likely conclusion is that children’s services is exercising its powers and duties to look after the child under section 20(1)(c) of the Children Act 1989
2. If children’s services are instead simply assisting in arranging informal family care, then they must be explicit with those involved about that
3. This includes giving clear information about who will be financially responsible for the child. Only if on receipt of such information can a potential kinship foster carer give informed consent to accept the child on an informal family care arrangement instead.

This law comes from important cases heard in the Court or Appeal. The cases are:

 London Borough of Southwark v D [2007] EWCA Civ 182 and
 R (SA) v Kent County Council [2011] EWCA Civ 1303.

It can be helpful to remind children’s services about these court decisions. And that what the court said in these cases has been applied by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) when dealing with complaints. This includes an important complaint against Liverpool City Council and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (complaints no. 12 006 209 and 15 018 561).

I hope that this is helpful to you. If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint then you can escalate this up through stages 2 and 3 and finally to the Local Government Ombudsman if necessary. Please see our website HERE for more information about the complaints process.

Please post again if you have further questions as things progress, or you can call our confidential adviceline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to speak with an adviser.

Best wishes,
Suzie

Hi Suzie,

Thanks for your response.

We have now received a letter from our Local Authority saying that during meetings with social services, prior to our daughter being told to leave our home, that we had already agreed to care for our Granddaughter in that scenario.

Our LA are obviously stating that it was an Informal / Private Arrangement and that our Granddaughter was not a 'looked after child'.
Surely their involvement would point to it being a case of our Granddaughter being 'looked after'?

Is it possible you can point out exactly where this quote came from?

“an offer or action by a relative or friend to care for the child after the duty [to look after the child] has arisen will not prevent the child being 'looked after' for the purposes of the Children Act 1989”

I'll look to further our complaint and hopefully get all the facts and court cases together to fully represent our case.

thanks

Dear Jarrovian,

Thank you for your updating post. From the information you have given I think that you have a strong argument to make that this should not have been considered a ‘private family arrangement’ as children’s services were involved with your granddaughter and were part of the conversations that you had about who would care for your granddaughter if your daughter left the family home. I would encourage you to escalate your complaint as explained in my previous post.

I am afraid that I cannot find where that specific quote comes from but hopefully the information and case law in my previous post will help support your complaint.

Please post again if you have further queries as you escalate your complaint,

Best wishes,
Suzie

Hi Suzie, it's been a while,

You'll be pleased to find out that thanks to your guidance we were successful with our complaint regarding the fostering allowance.
After a bit of back and forth they agreed that our complaint was reasonable and that all money for the period of time between taking on the sole care of our granddaughter up to the point of the SGO being finalised would be paid in full.
They also backdated child support which we hadn't been receiving until after the SGO was signed off.

I'm not certain why they agreed but i think they realised that finance had not been discussed at all with us and therefore our proven legal argument was rock solid.

I'd like to thank you for your help in this matter and hope others can also get the support they need and deserve.

Dear Jarrovian

Welcome back to the family and friends’ carers board. Thank you very much for your updating post. Congratulations on your successful complaint. It is really good to hear that children’s services have acknowledged the merit of your situation and that they had failed to treat you fairly and in accordance with the law.

It is also very helpful for other relatives caring for children to hear a success story so thank you for sharing this.

Wishing you and your family all the best.

Suzie