SGO advice

[Tabletop]

My daughter past away in January 2022 up till now social services have been involved but we haven’t had any weekly payments for the children how and where do I make a claim as we have just been awarded an SGO until the children are 18 they are aged 2,3,6 and 7 can anyone advise please

[Robin D]

Hello and welcome. So sorry that you lost your daughter and therefore need to be parent, rather than grandparents to the children.

Suzie the FRG advisor will be along to fully answer you when she can, but my understanding is that this should all have been settled as part of the SGO hearing. Any agreed funding would come from the Children's Services dept who did the SGO assessment. I suggest you contact them and ask what the arrangements are.

If no financial assessment was done, then I suspect you have grounds to make a complaint to the local authority. However, I would have expected the court to query it. Were you represented, or present at the hearing?

If you were only told verbally I regret you may have a battle on your hands if it was not ratified in the hearing. Some depts will do anything they can not to pay financial support. Depending on how the children came to be with you, the LA may simply say it's a private arrangement. However, part of the SGO assessment should be a review of finances and need, or otherwise, for financial support. With four of children, it's likely that you would have needed some support.

As I say earlier, an FRG advisor will be better placed to give you detailed advice. You can of course ring them free and confidentially Monday to Friday between 9.30am and 3pm (excluding Bank Holidays) on 0808 801 0366.

Hopefully it will just all be a misunderstanding.

Good luck .... Robin

[Tabletop]

After a discussion with my wife I find We had financial assessments done early on in the Process we were told we would be getting a weekly payment and how much we were present and represented in the court but nothing about financial help was discussed.

[Robin D]

I would start with a phone call to the social worker or their manager. If that leaves you with no reassurance, start a formal complaint. You will find help on how to do that at https://frg.org.uk/get-help-and-advice/what/complaints/.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

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My daughter past away in January 2022 up till now social services have been involved but we haven’t had any weekly payments for the children how and where do I make a claim as we have just been awarded an SGO until the children are 18 they are aged 2,3,6 and 7 can anyone advise please

After a discussion with my wife I find We had financial assessments done early on in the Process we were told we would be getting a weekly payment and how much we were present and represented in the court but nothing about financial help was discussed.

Dear Tabletop

Welcome to the kinship care discussion forum and thank you for your posts.

My name is Suzie, Family Rights Group online adviser and I will respond to your posts, although I see that another post has already given replies to you.

I am sorry that you have been having difficulty getting financial assistance from children’s services for your grandchildren.

You already have a special guardianship order and I wonder whether you made the application yourself as a private law application. It may be that children’s services encouraged you to apply so that you would have parental responsibility for the children. It is important to know if the children were considered to be ‘looked after’ children before the special guardianship order were made. Where children are looked after prior to the order being made, children’s services must pay special guardianship allowance if not, then it is in their discretion whether to pay or not.

You state in your post that you were told that you would receive financial support. Were you receiving any financial support during 2022 and subsequently and, if so, what did children’s services say about this payment.

Here is a section from the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 relating to financial support.

In your second post you say you had a financial assessment, were represented in your application for the special guardianship order. It would be expected that the financial assessment and what allowance would be paid to you is in the support package accompanying the special guardianship assessment report. Your solicitor should have advised you about the package and whether is was appropriate for the placement. Alternatively, if there was no support package the solicitor could have asked about this, or the children’s guardian appointed by the court could also challenge children’s services if there was no documented support. On occasions, the judge might raise the issue. It appears from your post that there was no discussion at court and unfortunately, you did not ask yourself about it.

The poster suggest you contact the social worker about the promised financial support. If you do not get a positive response then, I think you will need to go down the formal complaints route. A link to our website to provided in the previous post.

Please see this link to top tips and templates on our website, please see Letter 7 which you can amend to suit your circumstances to ask to be assessed for financial support.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie