Financial Double Standards within the Child Care Sector


Financial Double Standards within the Child Care Sector by A. J. Williams Fostering The current Government proposes to stop the ‘benefit’ of unemployed people, including parents of non-adult children, who refuse to accept whatever jobs they are offered, regardless of pay, hours, ease and cost of reaching workplace, and of whether their qualification and intelligence levels will be respected. It has also threatened to stop the ‘benefit’ of parents whose children refuse to go to school. With no income, affected parents will be unable to ‘meet their children’s needs’. They will then be charged with neglect and the children will be handed over, (via courts), to far higher funded Foster Parents. This move is actually likely to cost the Government more, not less. State Benefit rules and rates are standardised throughout England and Wales, but it is these countries 174 County, County Borough, Metropolitan Borough and Unitary Authority Councils who are responsible for funding the Fostering Industry and each has its own individual system. The current Family Justice Review Panel’s invitation to ‘submit evidence’ led me to start looking into the situation. The Maintenance, Holiday, Birthday, and Christmas Allowances paid by each of the above Councils are variants on the National Fostering Network’s recommended rates, and are supplemented by extra money for a range of items, including necessary furniture and equipment. The NFN’s recommended rates are 50% higher than the alleged cost of raising children in their own home. However State Benefit Child Allowances are 40% below that alleged cost. Furthermore unlike Foster Child Allowances, State Benefit Child Allowances do not increase with the child’s age. The above applies in respect of both able-bodied and physically handicapped children. The fact that Foster Children aren’t eligible for free school meals does nothing to rectify the huge differences. With the exception of some probationers, Foster Parents, who are self-employed, also receive Fees, alias ‘Rewards’, - the amount of which varies considerably. Whilst Foster Parents in charge of youngsters with ‘complex needs’, receiving Fees of just under £500/week in 2010, are not allowed to also take paid employment, other Foster Parents are . Pathway Plans Councils are now expected to compile ‘pathway plans’ to ease children in care’s route into the adult world. This policy will fail - because of the financial situation. Whilst amounts vary between Councils over 16 year old Foster Children receive very generous allowances for clothes, leisure activities, travel, pocket money and savings. There assumption appears to be that when Councils stop financially supporting them, be this at 18, 21 or 25, dependent on how long they continue in full-time education, former Foster Children will either earn enough to enable them to continue to enjoy the high standard of living they enjoyed in care, or their Birth Parents will be able to afford, - without getting into debt, - to subsidise them to this level. Following the Government’s recent threat to deduct £25 from the ‘benefit’ of unemployed youngsters who engage in anti-social behaviour, an ‘important person’ stated on television that this was a third, i.e. 33.3%, of an under 25 year olds’ ‘benefit’. It isn’t! It’s 46.78%. An under 25 year old receives £53.45, not £75.0. (The figures are 37% and £67.50 for over 25 year olds.) This amount is to cover food, fuel, household expenses and holidays, - in addition to the above items. Some Councils claim that Foster Children are taught to budget….but this is in the context of the well-funded fostering sector, - not in the context of low state benefits and low wages. Theft, prostitution and drug-pushing, which the Government is keen to stamp out amongst care-leavers, are methods of boosting low incomes, be these earned or derived from the state. Adoption Unlike Fostering Allowances, Adoption Allowances are mean-test-dependant. However, first, rates are linked to Fostering rates, (minus Child Benefit which can be claimed from the State), and, second, Adoption Allowances are ignored for tax credit purposes. The latter means that lower income Adoptive Parents receive Tax Credits and Adoption Allowances, whilst Birth Parents in the same, or perhaps a worse, situation only receive Tax Credits. Again, this applies in respect of both able bodied and physically handicapped children. When Foster Parents adopt the children they fostered, at least one Council gives them extra money for a couple of years to compensate for the loss of their Foster Parent Fees. If Adoptive Parents are dependant on State Benefit at least one Council doesn’t deduct Child Benefit from its Adoption Allowance, even though these Parents will automatically receive this Benefit from the State. The DES team responsible for compiling the recommended Adoption Allowance Means Test suggests that Adoptive Parents in receipt of ‘Income Support’ should automatically be given the highest AA rate, without a means tests. This will result in unemployed Adoptive Parents receiving far more for their Adopted Child than they receive from the State for each of their birth children Settling-in Grants for Furniture and Equipment are also available to Adoptive Parents, whilst Grants for House Extensions and Bigger Cars are available to both Adoptive and Foster Parents…although policies do vary between Councils. In some areas Settling-in Grants are means-test dependant, in other areas all Adoptive Parents receive them. One Council said that it doesn’t give Grants for anything that parents wouldn’t normally be expected to provide for their children. One Council paid one set of Adoptive Parents £56,000 for a house extension during the financial year 2010-2011, whilst another Council said that it only gives Foster Parents interest-free loans for such extensions. Councils also pay Adoptive Parents’ pre-adoption expenses. These include the travel, hotel, food and activity costs involved when prospective Adoptive Parents visit children in their Foster Homes, and Lodging of Adoption Order and other legal costs. Foster Parents also receive extra money for entertaining prospective Adoptive Parents. Whilst payment of Adoptive Parents’ legal costs is means-test dependant, at least one Council will pay up to £5,000 if a case is heavily contested. During the financial year 2010 – 2011, between them 166 of England and Wales 174 relevant Councils paid over £81 million in Adoption Allowances. Several of these Councils informed me that it would take too long and hence cost too much to unearth their expenditure on Settling in Grants and Adoptive Parents pre-adoption expenses. 4 Councils were unable to separate their expenditure on Adoption Allowances, Grants and Adoptive Parents pre adoption expenses, although one of these did provide information on its payment of Adoptive Parents legal costs. Between them these 4 paid out over £2 million in Adoption Allowances, Grants and Expenses. 3 Councils, namely Blaenau Gwent, Rutland and Wolverhampton have, as at 22nd November, 2011, failed to reply to my FOI request. As at this date Blaenau Gwent had stopped replying to all ‘What do They Know’ FOI questions. The final Council, namely the Isles of Scilly, didn’t pay out anything. My attempt to acquire every Council’s expenditure on the various fostering allowances during the financial year 2010-2011 has been thwarted by the lack of a nationally standardised accountancy system. I hold a University Degree, have never been a drug addict or alcoholic and have never been charged with either abuse or neglect. When, in the early 1970s, I approached the Authorities for ‘help’ my son was reacting very badly to my inability to afford to give him the pocket money, goodies and treats that his more affluent peers received, and I was suffering from severe physical fatigue, (falling asleep in work), as a result of working long hours to pay for the basics and from severe psychological fatigue as a result of the stress. The Authorities merely made things far worse. I received no practical help whatsoever and my son eventually became one of those many Children’s Home residents to end up in Prison. Solicitors either refused to act against Social Services or hadn’t a clue what to do. A. J. Williams
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