Content

13.1

The
Assistant Director for Children and Families introduced the report
which explained that Sheffield City Council last reviewed its
Kinship Care policy in 2017 and that the proposed policy revision
should leave all new Kinship Carers in Sheffield with access to
financial support which is equitable and applies to all.
 

13.2

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Education,
Children and Families Policy Committee:-

Review
and agree the recommended policy approach for managing payments for
new Kinship Carers.
Review
and agree the recommended policy approach for managing payments for
pre-existing Kinship Carers.

13.3

Reasons for Decision

13.3.1

Following the publication of the National Care Review and more
recently The National Kinship Strategy (Dec 2023), there has been a
significant change to the national direction of travel in relation
to safeguarding children. There is a renewed emphasis on the need
to move away from costly state intervention to a family help
approach. In Sheffield this change in direction fits with the
principles in our revised Sufficiency Strategy by ensuring that
when children cannot live at home they live with people in their
existing network (connected carers).

13.3.2

This
policy update will standardise the financial support model to
provide consistency for all kinship care families, ensuring the
family is able to plan for and around the needs of the child. The
process and timeline for accessing kinship care funding will be
clear, consistent, easily understood by all parties and able to be
applied regardless of circumstance. Additional financial support
will be available for those kinship care families most in
need.
 

13.4

Alternatives Considered and Rejected

13.4.1

Alternative Option 1: Do
Nothing.
 
Operate current mixed payment methodology: This
option does not help us to meet our goal of leaving all new Kinship
Carers in Sheffield with access to financial support which is
equitable and applies to all. We would not be standardising the
financial support model and additional financial support would
continue to be driven by assessment timescales and knowledge of the
system rather than an assessment of need.
 
Legal Risks: this option would leave us
vulnerable to legal challenge. A number of Local Authorities have
been subject to challenges and Local Government Ombudsmen
investigations around the equitability and consistent application
of their Kinship Care Policies. Doing nothing would not protect us
from this.
 

 

Alternative Option 2: Maintain Kinship Care agreements as they
currently are for a period of 3 years and then review this
decision.
 
This
would allow a period of consistency and enable good
medium[1]term financial
planning for current Kinship Carers. This would include any Skills
Payments Kinship Carers currently receive (around 8% currently
receive these). In terms of cost, this option would cost the Local
Authority £10.7m per year over 3 years, with an additional
amount needing to be set aside to cover any increase in the Kinship
Maintenance Allowance. This option does not mitigate against the
risk of legal challenge on our current Kinship payment
arrangements.
 

 

Alternative Option 3: Maintain Kinship Care agreements as they
currently are for a period of 1 year and then review this
decision
 
As
above, although costs would be lower.
 

 

Alternative Option 4: Move current Kinship Carers on to the new
policy.
 
This
option has the lowest financial cost to the Council but is likely
to have the greatest risk of legal challenge as current Kinship
Care arrangements would be being changed potentially at a financial
detriment to the Kinship Carers (through changes to individual
agreements and/or loss of Skills Payment).
 

 

Alternative Option 5: Phased move on to the new
policy.
 
This
option is a variant of the one above, giving more notice and
providing an element of mitigation to the Carers. If this option
were to be pursued, we would need to agree the length of the
phasing and the degree of financial change at each phase. We would
need to give notice to Carers. Again, there is thought to be a risk
of legal challenge around this option and with several different
individual agreements in place applying a blanket approach to a
phased move no to the new policy may prove confusing for carers
(‘what does this mean for me’) and may not be
appropriate