Special guardianship allowance

[Naturescape123]

Yesterday my wife and I were granted special guardianship for our 4yr old granddaughter. Just over a year ago our daughter passed away in tragic circumstances. We have been granted special guardianship allowance which was started yesterday. My question is should we have had any financial assistance from when we took care of our granddaughter up until now?
Thanks in advance

[Robin D]

I am afraid that it's unlikely you will get anything backdated unless you raised it before or in court.

It's still worth a letter to the director of children's services formally requsting it though. Just don't hold your breath.

[Naturescape123]

Thanks for your reply. Our local authority were taking care of things until the 11th hour, when they decided our granddaughter hadn't technically been in care so we would need to progress on our own and take it to court privately

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Naturescape123,

Welcome to the Friends and Family Carers Forum. I Am Suzie, FRG’s online adviser. I agree with Robin’s advice to you. It will be much more difficult to claim anything back now. (Thank you Robin for your advice.)

I would like to add something. I think it is important to know what the legal status of your granddaughter was before the special guardianship order was made. It sounded like children services changed their mind at the last minute. But it is a grey area and they may not have been right. Have a look at the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s focus report, Family Values 2013 as well as the 2018 focus report on SGO’s.

If the local authority had made a mistake and she was in fact a “looked after child” (LAC) this needs to be acknowledged by the local authority. You could ask for them to outline why they decided she was not a looked after child.
Previous LAC status is needed, if you wanted to claim support from the Adoption Support Fund at a later date.
LAC status is also a passport to an automatic assessment for further SGO support if you needed it in the future. (If she was not looked after, children services do not have to carry out an SGO assessment although they can do so and should consider it).

I hope my advice helps.

You could call our advice line on 0808 801 0366 to discuss your options or post again if you need further advice.

Best wishes,
Suzie