No financial support

[Nana23]

Further Update
Thankyou so much once again for your fantastic advice. Following the last post I did exactly what you advised I contacted my local MP for support who immediately contacted the Chief Executive of our Council, I also sent a complaint against the council online to the Local Government Ombudsman regarding the council not escalating to Stage 2, within 2 weeks we have now been informed our complaint will now proceed to stage 2, with 2 independent individuals investigating our complaint. I will update again as the complaint progresses. Once again thank you for all your help and advice.

[Robin D]

Cautiously good news. Hopefully you will now get a proper resolution.

As is often said, 'Keep on, keeping on' at them.

Please remember to update us as and when it's resolved, or of course if you need further advice.

Remember also, that my advice is based only on on my knowledge and experience. That from Suzie is much better as it's always up to date. Pleased to help where I can with interim advice though, given the pressures on the FRG advice team.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Further Update
Thankyou so much once again for your fantastic advice. Following the last post I did exactly what you advised I contacted my local MP for support who immediately contacted the Chief Executive of our Council, I also sent a complaint against the council online to the Local Government Ombudsman regarding the council not escalating to Stage 2, within 2 weeks we have now been informed our complaint will now proceed to stage 2, with 2 independent individuals investigating our complaint. I will update again as the complaint progresses. Once again thank you for all your help and advice.

Dear Nana23

Thank you for your updating post. I am pleased to know that the advice on this forum has helped, and things are now moving forward.

Do keep us updated.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Nana23]

Further update Stage 2

We have now received the LA response along with documents from the stage 2 investigators. Although the investigators partially upheld our complaint the LA are still of the opinion it was all a family arrangement, they are of the opinion they followed all their policies quoting s.66 of the Children's Act 1989. Within this piece of legislation they state they have a duty to ensure our granddaughter is in a safe place not assess ourselves as foster/kinship carers. They also state within their letter we never asked for financial assistance and have no record of their social worker asking us to take care of our granddaughter. They have stated they will in the future ensure other families in the same situation have a full discussion at the onset to prevent similar situations happening again. We will again reply asking for a stage 3 panel as we feel they are being selective on which part of the Children's Act they wish to use, we also feel they are putting the responsibility on ourselves rather than the LA giving us information at the onset, as at the very beginning it was an emergency situation our world had just been turned upside down. If there is any further advice you could offer or feel we should approach the LA a different way please let us know. Many thanks for all the advice to date.

[Robin D]

Make sure you tell them in writing that you want to move to Stage 3. If they reply with a refusal, you can put it straight to the LGO Ombudsman. https://www.lgo.org.uk/.

I am fairly certain the Mumby judgement will apply in that if the local authority were involved with the placement then you should receive proper financial support. I hope @Suzie will be along shortly to confirm this is still true and maybe with the references such that you can put them in your request for a Stage 3 complaint. If you google James Mumby you will find many references to his view that kinship carer's and the children they care for are being unfairly treated by the local authorities acting for the State. I am not up to date enough to help further on this point.

Don't give up.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Nana23

Thank you for your further updating post. It is good to hear that some parts of your complaint were upheld but not the main element which I understand is the argument that your granddaughter should have been treated as a looked after child and you as her kinship foster carers. It must be disappointing that the whole complaint was not upheld. However, you are proceeding to the next stage of the complaints process as you disagree with the outcome.

I know you have been assessed for special guardianship and were refused an allowance but I am not sure if you have obtained the Special Guardianship Order now? If you have, then Looked After Child status ended when you got the SGO but fostering allowance is still the starting point when assessing for special guardianship allowance.

All of the points you make in your post are reasonable and valid and you are right to proceed to the final stage of the local authority’s complaints process, stage 3, Review panel, as you are dissatisfied with the outcome of stage 2. As another poster has suggested, please make sure you confirm in writing that you wish to proceed to stage 3 and that you get an acknowledgement from the Complaints Department.

As you used our template letter initially to make your argument, this contained all the relevant Children Act 1989 references and clarified the case law which applies. Therefore, you have most likely set out all the necessary information.

I do not understand the local authority’s reference to section 66 of the Children Act 1989 which refers to private fostering arrangements. If you are birth grandparents then you are classed as close blood relatives so private fostering regulations do not apply. If so, you can query their application of section 66.

As the investigation into your complaint states that there is no record that the social worker asked you to care for your granddaughter or that you never asked for financial assistance you may want to reiterate your recollection of these events. You could also consider doing a Subject Access Request to ensure that you have all the information that you are entitled to. The timescale for children’s services to complete this request is within a month but they can request up to 2 more months, with written reasons. I am attaching a link to our advice sheet 6 a) accessing personal information held by children’s services which explains more about how to do this.


I know that this whole process is very time-consuming and frustrating. Please do post back for further support or updates if that is helpful to you. If you would like to speak to an adviser please call the freephone advice line 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. (except bank holidays).

Best wishes

Suzie

[Nana23]

Thank you for the valuable support and advice you have given. Further to your reply, we have had to halt the SGO as the LA decided to offer no financial support package at all, we made our decision due to my husband and I being near retirement age we felt we could not offer our granddaughter the security she needed with the SGO. We have escalated our complaint to stage 3 and the LA are arranging a panel. We have asked in writing for the subject access request, this has been denied as we do not have PR. We are now in the process of asking our son to apply and pass on all the information he obtains. Many thanks again and we will update as soon as we have further information.

[Nana23]

UPDATE;
Thankyou once again for your valuable advice throughout our long journey with the local authority.
We managed to obtain a subject access request with the help of our son; as advised, we attended a Stage 3
panel hearing last Friday and today received the panels decision, our complaint has now been FULLY UPHELD with recommendations to the LA to review their decision to regard our granddaughters placement
as a " private family arrangement " we are absolutely ecstatic. We will now await the LA response which will hopefully now assess us as kinship carers. We will update again once we have received the LA response, it has taken almost 1year of correspondence with the LA going through stage 1, 2 and 3 we have now had our granddaughter for 3 years 5 months, without the help and advice received through the FRG, Robin and Suzie
none of this would have been possible, thank you everyone from the bottom of our hearts, anyone in a similar situation please keep going, and don't give up xx

[Robin D]

Absolutely delighted for you and your granddaughter and shows that perseverance pays off. I know you still have not reached the end of the road, but with that recommendation from the panel you have excellent evidence to give to the Ombudsman if the LA still cut up funny. Hopefully common sense will prevail now and the rest of the process runs smoothly.

If I have been the tiniest bit of assistance, that pleases me no end to know that a child is safe with their family and that the family gets the support they deserve. To be fair, Suzie on behalf of FRG has provided some really succinct advice to you.

Robin