Kinship care: New allowance will support hundreds of Sheffield families looking after children

A meeting of Sheffield City Council’s children, education and families policy committee agreed on Tuesday (September 3) to bring in a single financial allowance for kinship carers, based on the child’s age.

Kinship care happens when a child can’t live with their parents and a member of the extended family or close family friend takes over the main care role.

A report to the committee said: “A kinship carer provides a stable home life where they can grow and develop in a safe, positive environment. They also get to stay in their existing family network, which helps maintain their sense of identity and family relationships.”

In February this year, there were 930 (Feb 2024) children and young people in kinship care in Sheffield. The number of new kinship care arrangements starting every year in the city is around 89.

Consistent

The committee heard that payments are not consistent because of the variety of legal routes that can lead a child to come into kinship care.

The report said that the new allowances, which will replace other payment methods, should benefit 850 current carers who currently receive less. The council will maintain the current level of payment for another 80 families who get above the standard rate for two years, then their cases will be reviewed.

The report said: “We want to 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.

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“Additional financial support should be available for those kinship care families most in need.”

It also said that the process and timeline for accessing kinship care funding should be “clear, consistent, easily understood by all parties and able to be applied regardless of circumstance”.

The new rules will mean that families would receive a kinship maintenance allowance of £170 a week for children aged up to four, £187 for children aged five to 10, £213 for 11-to-15-year-olds and £249 for young people aged 16 and 17.

Eligible

Only carers who receive Universal Credit or another form of Income Support would get child benefit as well. Some families will also be eligible for extra financial support.

The allowance will be means-tested for some families because of government rules and all will be reviewed annually to take into account any change of circumstances, the new policy says.

A Fostering and Kinship Care Financial Support Panel will oversee financial and other decisions.

The current budget is £6.9m a year and the increased cost of the new payments will be £2.6m in 2025-26.

The changes follow on from a National Care Review and the publication of a National Kinship Strategy in December 2023. The committee report said this stressed “a renewed emphasis on the need to move away from costly state intervention to a family help approach”.

The report said: “In all cases, a Kinship Care Support Plan will be produced by the Kinship Team. This will contain details of any financial support and will be signed off by either an Assistant Director or the Fostering and Kinship Care Financial Support Panel.”

The new system has been drawn up because of inconsistencies in the ways that support payments are drawn up by the range of court orders that place children in kinship care. This leaves local authorities open to a “significant level of risk” of legal challenge.