Savings

[WorryWort]

I’m currently a kinship career considering SGO. Does anyone know how much is considered an ok amount of savings to have please? I’m worried they’ll say I should be living off my savings, although I don’t have very much

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear WorryWort

Welcome to the kinship carers’ board. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser.

I am sorry to hear about your difficult situation. You explain that you are a kinship carer and potential Special Guardian. You are worried about the financial assessment for a special guardianship allowance. You are concerned about the savings element and how this is assessed.

It would be helpful to know if you are a kinship foster carer or whether you are caring for the child under a different kinship care arrangement. Children’s services would have a duty to assess your support needs (including for a special guardianship allowance) if you are a kinship foster carer. They can but they do not have to assess you if there is a different arrangement in place.

I am attaching our advice sheet on Special Guardianship: practical and financial support for information. Different local authorities use different financial assessment models. I would recommend that you ask the Special Guardianship Support Team in the area responsible for the child you are caring for to provide you with a copy of their policy and the model they use to assess kinship carers’ financial circumstances. Local authorities should be transparent about how they calculate financial support for (prospective) special guardians including regular periodical payments so they should be willing to share this information with you.

If you have a solicitor representing you in care proceedings or a private law special guardianship application then you ask them to help ensure you receive the best package of financial support you can.

Other kinship carers on this forum may have more specific advice to add about the savings element and how this was assessed when they were having a means-test for SG allowance.

I hope this helps. Please post back or call, email or use our webchat for further advice. Please see here for all the different advice options,

Best wishes

Suzie

[Me,herandV]

Hi. We were awarded an SGO for our granddaughter in Spring 2024. At the time we had around £32k between us in savings. We are both on state pension. LA insisted we apply for all other benefits possible, even though we knew from .Gov website that we were not eligible (inc child benefit). LA pay us fostering allowance of £195.02 a week. Hope this helps.

[WorryWort]

Thanks very much. I’ve since found out the limit for xx LA is £16k in savings, so not a lot at all!!

IfI had £16k I’d be expected to live off that, which wouldn’t last a year, so don’t know what I’d do after that


[Post edited by Suzie to remove reference to specific LA)