Kinship care benefits following death of Guardian

[Chrisq45]

Our Grandson was born in November 2004, he spent his first few weeks with his Mother in a secure hospital facility in an unsuccessful attempt to get her to bond with him. After this they were released to live with the Maternal Grandparents under the protection of Social Services but his Mother kept disappearing for considerable periods of time, neither she nor his Father were deemed capable of parenting so he has been brought up by both Maternal and Paternal (us) Grandparents. Neither of the Maternal Grandparents worked but we worked full time so he lived with them weekdays and us at weekends, we also went to see him in the evenings during the week. In June 2008 his Mum gave birth to another Son (Father unknown) who was initially fostered but later Social Services persuaded the Maternal Grandparents to take him as well.
Change came in 2010 when my Wife retired followed by me in 2011, our pension income wasn't sufficient to continue the high financial support that we had previously given even with augmenting it from our savings. The Maternal Grandparents gained a Special Guardianship order for the boys in December 2012 and we believe substantial funding as Kinship Carers and they took responsibility for funding the purchase of clothes, shoes and many of the more expensive items needed. At the start of the Pandemic and lockdown in March 2020 we jointly decided to split the family with our Grandson living with us and his half Brother staying where he was thus giving us greater options should any of us get Covid. The Maternal Grandfather died in March 2019 and Grandmother in December 2021 after a short unexpected illness, after her terminal diagnosis she expressed her desire for us to apply for an SGO for our Grandson and to become his carers and her Son, their Uncle to do the same for his half brother.
Both boys remain in the Social Services Child in Need category for the moment until everything is resolved. We expected Social Services to help us with guidance, advice and support in obtaining the SGO's but they have refused saying that it was not their responsibility, it was ours and my questions about any funding to bring the boys up have yet to be answered at our meetings. They are very happy that the boys are safe, being well looked after, happy in their environments and the inter-family relationships. Presumably the Child Benefit and Kinship Care financial support payments for the boys would only be paid up to the time of her death. Very recently the SS have told me that they may be taking our Grandson out of the Child in Need programme at our next meeting on Monday 7th March and they will say that our situation is a “Private Agreement” and walk away. Our Grandson is 17, 18 in November so we think that it isn't viable to spend money on legal fees for something that may not be resolved before his birthday when it all ends anyway. What we would like to know is can they do that without our agreement, if they do can we appeal their decision, are we entitled to any additional funding other than Child Benefit, if so how do we go about claiming it and who from.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Chrisq45,

Welcome to the kinship carers’ forum and thankyou for your post. I am very sorry to hear that your grandson’s maternal grandparents both passed away recently.

From the information that you have given it does appear that children’s services are correct in saying that this is a private family arrangement. An agreement was made between you and the maternal grandmother (the special guardian) before her death that you would continue to care for your grandson. This meant that your grandson did not become a looked after child at this time. As such children’s services are not obligated to provide any financial assistance to you. However it may be possible to request financial support under the discretionary Section 17 budget. You may wish to discuss this further with the social worker. You may also find it helpful to read Advice Sheet 2h ‘Welfare benefits for kinship carers’ which you can find here.

Given your grandson’s age I would not advise that it would be beneficial to make the application for an SGO at this stage. As you identified the court process may not even be concluded by his 18th birthday. However, the uncle who is caring for your grandson’s half brother may wish to consider this - here is a link to our advice sheets. See Section 2 for advice sheets regarding special guardianship orders, child arrangement orders and welfare benefits.

If children’s services have decided to close the child in need plan and you disagree with this then you can challenge this decision. I would suggest that you send an email to the social worker asking for them to set out in writing within 10 working days why they have decided that your grandson is not a child in need and for details of the local threshold document for getting help. This should set out the criteria and thresholds for the child in need service and you can then use this to challenge if appropriate. If you do not receive a clear and reasonable explanation then you might wish to consider making a formal complaint.

You may find it helpful to contact the Mary Ward Legal Centre for more advice about benefits that you might be entitled to.

I hope that the above is of some help. Please post again if you have any further queries or you can call our free confidential helpline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to speak with one of our advisers.

Best wishes,
Suzie