The Implications Of The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill
Bryan Richie, Director in Scotland of the Fostering Network, discusses the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill…
As I write this article in October 2006 the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill is undergoing its Stage 2 Process within the Scottish Parliament, which is due to end in early November. Stage 3 of the Bill is due to be completed by Christmas 2006. If this timetable is adhered to, it is likely that we will see an Act prior to the parliamentary elections in May 2007.
Contained within the Bill as it currently stands are two issues that will directly affect foster carers and children in foster care:
Permanency Order
The first of these is the proposed new order ‘The Permanency Order’. This order will secure children in long-term placements as an alternative to Children’s Hearings supervision requirements and it is designed to replace Freeing for Adoption Orders and Parental Responsibility Orders.
Permanence Orders were first mooted in the Adoption Policy Review Group’s Report ‘Better Choices For Our Children’, which was published on the 6th June 2005. Without going into too much detail Permanence Orders are designed to give children security in terms of residing with their foster carers on a long-term basis whilst at the same time giving foster carers the capacity to make decisions on a day-to-day basis in respect of the children that they care for.
Permanence Orders, it is hoped, will remove the impermanence attached to Children’s Hearings supervision requirements, which in the view of the Adoption Policy Review Group are designed to be short-term solutions rather than a means by which children can be secured on a longer-term basis.
The Fostering Network in Scotland has supported the concept of Permanence Orders since their inception as a member of the Adoption Policy Working Group. In addition we have stated to the Scottish Executive that Permanency Orders will require the ongoing support of the Scottish Executive in terms of training, leadership and practitioner support if they are to be fully implemented and supported throughout Scotland.
Social Workers will have to apply to the court for an order and will of course have to demonstrate why the Sheriff should make such an order. Our view is that the proposed order will prove to be a valuable option in terms of securing children and young people, but that as stated above, will need an ongoing commitment from the Scottish Executive to ensure that this new legislative option is fully utilised by practitioners. A suggestion might be to ask the Social Work Inspectorate to monitor the use of permanency orders and to ask Local Authorities why they are not pursuing orders in certain situations. Additionally their use could be monitored via a performance framework.
It is clear that the most notable difference between permanence orders and the proposed special guardianship orders is the fact that children subject to permanence orders will remain ‘looked after and accommodated’ which will, we hope, ensure continuing support to the placement. However we would also hope to see the interaction by the Local Authority with the child change to suit the individual needs of the child now considered ‘permanently placed’, an example might be the nature of reviews.
Fostering Allowances
An allowance is the money given to carers to spend on the child. The second issue of direct relevance to foster carers contained within the proposed Act is the establishment by the Scottish Executive of a National Fostering Allowance.
This is already in place in England and Northern Ireland, where rates have been set as minimal rates by the governments in those respective countries. As the reader may be aware, the Fostering Network have been campaigning for the last 10 years in respect of a National Fostering Allowance that fully reflects the costs of caring for children.
Whilst the English and Northern Ireland rates are substantially below the recommended Fostering Network rate, it is a start. It is possible that the rates established by the Scottish Executive, if this provision is contained within the Act, will be minimum rates which will leave the door open for agencies throughout Scotland to supplement these rates should they deem it necessary.
This is an important provision for at the moment in Scotland 11 Local Authorities already meet the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum rate and as such would be paying their carers an allowance that was more than that recommended in the minimum allowance set in England and Northern Ireland. It is likely that these Local Authorities and indeed others, will continue to examine this as a potential way of recruiting and retaining foster carers, thus ensuring that the carers themselves are not having to supplement the care of children in the looked after system.
The Fostering Network, with the support of the ADSW and COSLA, surveyed local authorities in Scotland to find out about the extra investment needed to implement the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum fostering allowance. The survey of local authorities found that they need a further £5.5 million each year to provide all foster carers with the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum allowances. This figure is derived from the Family Expenditure Survey carried out by government on an annual basis, and additional work carried out by Fostering Network to include the costs specific to carrying out the task of fostering. It is widely regarded as the benchmark for allowances across the UK.
{mospagebreak}The current annual expenditure on fostering allowances by local authorities in Scotland is £21.3 million therefore requiring an increase of 26 per cent.
The numbers of children in foster care have continued to grow over the last decade and on any one-day there are over 3500 children looked after by foster carers in Scotland. By comparison the annual cost of providing secure care for on average 87 children is £16.6m.
We received responses from all 32 Scottish local authorities. They gave details of the number of children in foster care and the allowances they currently pay foster carers. Some local authorities link adoption allowances and/or residence order allowances to the fostering allowance.
Increasing the fostering allowance will have a knock on effect; in these instances we asked fostering services to provide us with details of residence order allowances and adoption allowances.
Comparison with the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum allowances
Out of 32 local authorities, 11 are paying the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum rate or above and 21 are paying below.
The Fostering Network’s recommended minimum weekly allowances 2006-07
Age of child Allowance
0-4 £114.87
5-10 £130.85
11-15 £162.89
16+ £198.11
Current expenditure on fostering allowances
per week per year
Allowances £409,525.64 £21,295,333.28
The current annual expenditure on fostering allowances by local authorities is £21,295,333.28. The survey showed that an extra £5,487,061.84 (26 per cent increase) of investment is needed each year to bring allowances in Scotland up to the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum allowance. If adoption allowances and residence order allowances are included, this brings the total up to £7,226,491.82.
The table below shows the weekly and yearly costs of increasing the allowances to the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum rates.
weekly yearly
Fostering allowances £105,520.42 £5,487,061.84
Adoption allowances £1,493,024.87
Residence order allowances £246,405.11
Total £7,226,491.82
Minimum allowances
We also looked at the extra investment needed if all allowances were brought up to the national minimum rates in England and Northern Ireland. From April 2007 these represent the minimum allowance any foster carer should receive for their fostered child or young person to cover the costs of fostering.
It must be noted that these rates exclude a number of significant costs including housing, cost of a larger car, holidays and birthdays. Local authorities would need to pay an increased amount to foster carers to cover these costs.
National minimum allowances 2007-08
Babies Pre-Primary Primary 11-15 16-17
Base (£) £100 £102 £113 £129 £151
Of the 32 local authorities, the survey found that 12 local authorities pay above the national minimum allowances, and 19 pay below. The survey showed that an extra £2.3 million of investment is needed to bring fostering allowances up to the national minimum rate. This represents an increase of 11 per cent on current spending.
Conclusion
Foster carers in two-thirds of local authorities are being left out of pocket by the current system of fostering allowances. These foster carers receive an amount below the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum rates suggesting that they are having to contribute to the cost of looking after a fostered child from their own pockets.
It is an unsustainable situation particularly with the current drastic shortage of foster carers across Scotland. This Bill gives the Scottish Executive an opportunity to do something about this.
The survey of local authorities did not distinguish between babies and pre-primary. Therefore, the figure of £2.3million was calculated on the basis that the allowance for a 0-4 year old was £102. This figure does not include the costs of increases in residence order allowances and adoption allowances, which we were unable to work out from the data available.
