Robert Brown calls for end to kinship care funding fiasco

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 7th Apr 2008

Glasgow Liberal Democrat MSP Robert Brown has called for an end to the Kinship Care funding fiasco which has left grandparents and pensioners who look after children in Glasgow waiting for kinship care payments which they were promised.

A Scottish Government report last year called for Kinship Care allowances to be paid to these relatives at the same rate as Foster parent allowance, which is paid to people who care for children not related to them.

The new rules to ensure equality between the status of kinship carers and foster parents came into force on April 1st, meaning that both types of carer could be paid the same amount.

However, the Scottish Government has left it to local councils to decide when and how best to introduce the scheme - with a deadline only of 2011 - meaning that many grandparents are now waiting to find out how and when they will receive their extra money.

In Glasgow, the city council has yet to provide for Kinship Care Allowances, and no new Government cash is to be available.

Many grandparents or relatives are often left to look after children when the parents have left the home, or are physically unable to care for their children or are suffering from drug or alcohol addiction.

In these cases, local councils recognise that often the best place for these children is to be with family members rather than unknown foster carers.

However the disparity in funding available to foster carers and family members often means that grandparents are left to pay for the costs of bringing up children from their pensions, with little or no state assistance.

Robert Brown said:

"Kinship carers such as grandparents are forgotten heroes in our society. They do a tremendous job, with very little resources, and it's about time the SNP Government honoured the promises they made to them.

"Professionals from across the sector recognise that in a situation where a child can no longer live with their parents, it is often in their best interests for them to stay with their Granny or another family member, rather than going into foster care.

"But very often the relatives who care for them are on benefits themselves or state pension and cannot afford the school uniforms, increased bills and all the other costs of bringing up a child.

It's a ridiculous situation to be in - months after Parliament passed legislation to remove this inequality for kinship carers, the money has still not been made available to those who need it.

"It's entirely unsatisfactory that local authorities have been given up to 2011 to implement the funding. This is both an unnecessary postcode lottery and an administrative shambles. It is entirely unnecessary and it has been caused by the SNP Government with its hollow and meaningless Local Government Concordat.

"The Government needs to get its act together to provide specific funding for this, and sort the whole fiasco out, to ensure that local authorities are able to provide Kinship Carers with their allowance as fast as possible."

ends