SGO order granted 2 days ago, but still very confused

[sharloulou]

hi, I shall try to keep it brief and not too garbled.

my great nephew came to us july 2012 from (one ss county in the uk which I shall refrain from naming) they asked us to take him, we are not registered foster carers, and only found out on Tuesday 3rd sept 2013 (2 days ago when the sgo order was made) that (ss) did not do this on a reg 24 either ( I am still very confused)
because our great nephew was in one county area when taken from his mother, that is why that county were dealing with it, but we are in a different county to the one he was taken from so the day before the sgo hearing (2nd sept 2013) we met a childrens services worker from our area(for the 1st time I might add) who had to do a brief round up of events and do a very quick financial assesement for sgo allowance funding which had to be ready for the sgo order in court the next day 3rd sept 2013.

so, on the day 3rd sept 2013 we had a solicitor and social worker (from the other counties area) plus a solicitor and social worker from our area all in one room with myself and my husband, all arguing who would pay what etc...

what I need to know now is.. we have been offered half of what the other county were paying us on a residence allowance which was £105, now the sgo order has been granted under our area, we are being offered around £48 pw (we haven't been given a final; figure) I know it goes down because we can now claim child benefit and child tax credits for him, but I am not sure if this is just for now that we get this payment, and in say a year or 2 it will stop all together, everything in court the other day was so stressful and hectic, I am not aware of our areas social services team saying this payment will be in place until my great nephew is 18, and now the sgo order has been granted, I am now powerless to do anything about it.
we were not represented in court by our own solicitor because we could not afford the £250 per court hearing plus vat that we were quoted, and the other counties ss flatly refused to pay any more of our court costs.
I am just very worried that our areas ss are now going to pay the £48 ish for a year or so, then stop all together, and because me and my husband had no legal representation on the day, we have been had over a bit and will be out of pocket in a year or so.

[sharloulou]

hello, yes, our areas ss agreed that they would take over once the SGO was granted on the 3rd sept 2013.
in the SGO order it does say they will pay until the child reaches 18yrs old, can they get around this and make negligible payments or none at all and just say it is based on the annual means test that we shall have to do?
I am just feeling very let down and badly treated by the other counties social services and have no faith whatsoever in any authorities doing anything to help my family now and they are all just out for themselves and not the people who take on these children.
I have started the official complaints procedure yesterday (stage 1) but to be honest, am just expecting the other counties cc/ss to just do one mass cover up and use their solicitors to baffle us with things they know that we know nothing about as we can't afford legal representation, and do not qualify for legal aid either.
apologies if I have wandered off subject, it is just very frustrating and feel a bit of a fool for taking them at their word for over a year, when all the time, they were having us right over.

[David Roth]

Hi sharloulou

You have my sympathies. For most family and friends carers, dealing with one local authority can be problematic enough, but when you have to deal with two it can be very frustrating.

The question I was left with when I read your post was whether or not the issue of the child's legal status had been sorted out through the court process. Or was the council's assertion that it was not a Regulation 24 placement just accepted without question?

On the face of it, if the council played a major role in placing the child with you, and you did not give your informed consent at the time to it being another legal arrangement, then it should have been a Reg 24 placement, regardless of what the council stated afterwards, and you should have been paid the full fostering allowance that would have been paid to any of their other foster carers raising a child of that age, and you should have been given temporary fostering approval.

It seems to me that you may well have grounds for making a complaint to the original local authority which placed the child with you. The Local Government Ombudsman upheld a complaint against Liverpool council recently, by a family and friends carer in very similar circumstances to what you describe - there is a report on the case here: http://www.lgo.org.uk/news/2013/aug/liv ... 40-carers/ - it would probably assist your complaint if you were to refer to this case. FRG's advice sheet 25 gives information on making complaints: http://www.frg.org.uk/need-help-or-advice/advice-sheets

If you do complain, it would probably be an idea to send a copy of it to your local authority of residence, for information only, so they are aware of what you are doing.

If you do establish that the original authority should have considered the child to be looked after, then you have a good case for arguing that they ought to be taking responsibility for continuing financial support for the child.

It might help you to talk about how to proceed with this to one of our advisers - it's a freephone number 0808 801 0366, lines are open 9.30am-3pm Mon-Fri.

I haven't mentioned the names of the authorities in my reply, and you might want to consider removing them from your post, in order to help retain anonymity.