Decision Maker:

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Date of Decision: September 3, 2024

Purpose:

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