I have been fostering my 3 grandchildren since last December. We would dearly love to go SGO but are being told that you have had to have fostered for at least 1 year, is this correct?.
Also would we be able to claim the SGO allowance and is it considerably less than fostering. My husband is 57 and as the children are aged 6, 8 and 11 he does not want to be worried out providing for the children.
The children are really settled and happy so we feel it is the best all round for us to apply.
Kinship Fostering
Re: Kinship Fostering
Hi Nunny. We have an SGO for our granddaughter. We got our's a day after her 1st birthday, although she came to our home straight from birth we were not fostering fully at that stage as she spent time here and at her birth parents until it became clear that her parents could not care for her properly. We were asked to look after her full time when she was around 4 months. 8 months later we got the guardianship order.
She is now nearly 3 and full of mischief !
She is now nearly 3 and full of mischief !
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David Roth
- Posts: 2021
- Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:14 am
Re: Kinship Fostering
Hi Nunny
To answer your original question about whether and when you are entitled to apply for a special guardianship order: you are entitled to apply for an SGO if you are a relative who has been raising the child for at least a year before you apply. You don't have to have been fostering her, although foster carers who have been raising an unrelated foster child for at least a year are also able to apply.
You would be best to discuss the SGO allowance before any order is made, and make sure you have an agreement in writing from the local authority about what they are going to pay you. There are several important factors governing the level of SGO allowance that you could be paid:
- if the child is previously looked after (and if you are fostering your granddaughter then she is looked after) then you are entitled to be assessed on your need for financial and other support from the local authority
- there are important precedents for the amount you would receive. A court of appeal judgment held that the amount special guardians are paid should be the same they would receive if they were fostering the child, but reduced by the amount of payment they receive in child benefit and child tax credit, which foster carers don't get. However, the Local Government Ombudsman recently found that SGO allowances shouldn't be reduced if the carers are claiming Income Support.
- the special guardianship regulations state that special guardians who used to foster the child can be paid an element of remuneration for up to two years after the SGO has been made. I understand this (remuneration) to refer to the reward or salary part of the fostering allowance that is paid to many local authority foster carers, on top of the money they receive for the child's upkeep.
However, local authorities tend to have widely different approaches to paying SGO allowances, not all of them are compliant with the requirements of case law and the Ombudsman that I outlined. It is best to find out where you local authority stands before you commit yourself to going forward, perhaps by looking at their policy or getting someone to write it down for you.
To answer your original question about whether and when you are entitled to apply for a special guardianship order: you are entitled to apply for an SGO if you are a relative who has been raising the child for at least a year before you apply. You don't have to have been fostering her, although foster carers who have been raising an unrelated foster child for at least a year are also able to apply.
You would be best to discuss the SGO allowance before any order is made, and make sure you have an agreement in writing from the local authority about what they are going to pay you. There are several important factors governing the level of SGO allowance that you could be paid:
- if the child is previously looked after (and if you are fostering your granddaughter then she is looked after) then you are entitled to be assessed on your need for financial and other support from the local authority
- there are important precedents for the amount you would receive. A court of appeal judgment held that the amount special guardians are paid should be the same they would receive if they were fostering the child, but reduced by the amount of payment they receive in child benefit and child tax credit, which foster carers don't get. However, the Local Government Ombudsman recently found that SGO allowances shouldn't be reduced if the carers are claiming Income Support.
- the special guardianship regulations state that special guardians who used to foster the child can be paid an element of remuneration for up to two years after the SGO has been made. I understand this (remuneration) to refer to the reward or salary part of the fostering allowance that is paid to many local authority foster carers, on top of the money they receive for the child's upkeep.
However, local authorities tend to have widely different approaches to paying SGO allowances, not all of them are compliant with the requirements of case law and the Ombudsman that I outlined. It is best to find out where you local authority stands before you commit yourself to going forward, perhaps by looking at their policy or getting someone to write it down for you.
David Roth
FRG Policy Adviser
FRG Policy Adviser
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