What financial help should we be asking for?

[Skippy]

It looks likely that we'll be taking on the care of our nephew in the near future, and the child's guardian has recommended we go for a special guardianship order.
We have our own solicitor, at the recommendation of social services' solicitor, who agrees that is the right approach. However, it is interesting to see that some SS departments appear to be funding the legal representation of the person who has offered to take on a looked-after child. Should we be asking for that? We've already run up over £2000 of legal bills so far, and are expecting up to £4000 more, as this is quite a complex case.
We've also got a bit of a quandary - we send our own two children to private school, which stretches us financially, but there is no way we could afford to send a third child to the same school. Is there any possibility that we could get funding so they could all go to the same school - we don't want our nephew to feel he is attending a 'second best' school, but we had to really cut back on a lot of things to afford for our younger daughter to go.
Just having a bit of a rant, I do find it bizarre that the people who are offering to take on (and support financially) a child for the next 12 years of his life have to fork out massive legal bills to make it happen! I would have self-represented but the case is just too complex, with birth-parents vehemently opposing everything and everyone, and even accusing us of being bad parents!

[David Roth]

Hi skippy

You can certainly ask your local authority to pay your legal bills, or make a contribution towards them. The special guardianship regulations explicitly give them the power to do that (regulation 6 is where it is mentioned). However, they are not required to pay, so you would need to make a case to the local authority. It would probably be best to write directly to the person who controls the budget, e.g. the children's services assistant director, making your case. It is not an unreasonable request, given that if you were not involved the local authority would probably have the considerable expense of care proceedings followed by adoption, but different local authorities do have different approaches to paying legal expenses.

Similarly, you will have to make a case over the school fees. Explain that although you have sent your own two children to fee-paying schools, this has drained you financially and you do not have the financial resources to do this again, but you do not want to treat your nephew differently. However, I would suggest that you need to plan how to deal with a refusal - both how you would explain it to your nephew, and how you will best support his education.

I am sorry to hear about the difficulties you are having - being involved in a contested case can be quite unpleasant, particularly when accusations are being made against you.