Seòmar agus comataidhean

In our journey towards keeping the Promise and in everything that the Scottish Government is working on—its aims and priorities—it is useful to learn from and understand such things and to assess how we can ensure that such situations do not happen or that, as I said in my previous answer, disruption to the child is kept at a minimal level. That involves on-going processes, which we will consider as we go forward.

I appreciate that there has been a slight delay in the publication of the guidance, which was because we wanted to ensure that we engaged widely. As I believe I mentioned in my opening remarks, however, we are on schedule to publish that guidance by the end of the year. The rewrite group is currently refining the document and, once it is content with it, it will be reviewed by members of the reference group, which includes the Child Poverty Action Group, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and the Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland. We intend to engage with kinship carers in the last week in November, and that will be included, too.

It is worth highlighting that the collaborative agreed to form a working group to develop a new national assessment framework for kinship care. That framework reflects the point that the kinship assessment is unique in that it assesses a carer for the needs of a specific child, unlike a foster care assessment. It also considers what extra support might be required within the family. The framework has been developed as a companion to the refreshed guidance, so it will be published at the same time. There are also plans to put in place a programme of awareness raising and training for practitioners, managers and local authorities to support the roll-out and implementation of the guidance and the assessment framework. That is all being done with the aim of improving practice in Scotland.

I touched on that a little in my opening statement. The Scottish Government does not hold information on which local authorities have already backdated the payments, because it is up to local authorities to decide how best to implement that according to their systems.

I am aware that, for some local authorities, implementing the allowance might require changes to their financial systems, as well as calculating those backdated amounts and contacting carers. The time that is needed to undertake that might therefore be different for each local authority. However, we have received the positive feedback that some local authorities have already implemented the new allowance and have made those back payments. Others are expecting to do so by the end of November or soon afterwards.

I want to be clear that there is a legal requirement, set out in the Kinship Care Assistance (Scotland) Order 2016, for local authorities to publish information about kinship care assistance. That includes the rate at which allowances are payable. As part of the grant letter that went out in October, the Scottish Government also asked local authorities to publish their kinship and fostering allowances and to take the necessary actions to ensure that all current kinship and foster carers are aware of the rates.

As I said, we are absolutely positive that it will be carried out in good time, based on how the local authority needs to carry it out. We will also monitor that.

First of all, I give my thanks to the members of the collaborative for their very hard work and their commitment to delivering change.

As committee members will be aware, the collaborative was formed in late 2020. Many people volunteered to give up what has been a considerable amount of their time to attend meetings. Throughout that time, participants have shared expertise and understanding of the issues in kinship care, many of which we have discussed this morning. That has helped to inform and drive the work of the collaborative.

The publication of the refreshed guidance and the new assessment framework that we have been discussing this morning will be key milestones. We should then perhaps sit back for a second to take stock, in collaboration with the collaborative—that is quite a tongue-twister—about what the future might look like. I am very happy to keep the committee informed of decisions on that.

I would not want any kinship carer to feel that they are stuck in a situation and cannot come forward to seek the advice, guidance or support that they require. I will hand over to officials to go into a little more detail on that.

Although it is the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that that information is available, we appreciate its importance, as I said at the beginning, and we want to ensure that people have the information and support that they need.

The launch of the refreshed guidance will provide a really good opportunity for everyone in the care sector to promote kinship care as an option for children and young people. We will ensure that the information on the Scottish Government website, as well as that from the Kinship Care Advice Service, is regularly updated.

There is a lot of work going on. As I said, that is down to local authorities, but the Scottish Government is providing support to ensure that the information is available and accessible, and we will continue monitoring that to look for ways in which we can improve.

Yes, absolutely. I am absolutely confident that there is sufficient funding there to support the roll-out of the recommended allowance. The £16 million figure for the funding was based on the difference between the cost of paying the Scottish recommended allowance or higher and the current local authority expenditure on foster and kinship care allowances, and it was worked out through negotiations with COSLA. It was modelled using current local authority expenditure on children in foster and kinship care, including informal kinship care, and the most up-to-date data from the children’s social work statistics.

In relation to when they will receive that funding, on 18 October, the Scottish Government issued a letter to local authority directors of finance detailing how much funding they were receiving. The letter would enable local authorities to implement the allowance knowing the level of funding that they will receive. The actual money will be transferred from the Scottish Government at the end of the financial year through the local government settlement funding mechanism. As the committee will be aware, that is standard practice.

The £16 million of funding is being distributed on the same basis as the existing kinship care allocation. The distribution has recently been changed to—I have the figures here—35 per cent of children aged zero to 18 in low-income families, 35 per cent of children in receipt of Scottish child payments and 30 per cent of the zero-to-18 general population. That is for the full 2023-24 financial year.

Absolutely. Making decisions based on budgetary practice would go against everything that we are aiming for with the Promise. The answer to Bob Doris’ question is, therefore, yes—absolutely.

Absolutely. I have heard some of the commentary about that. The group that undertook the 2018 national review of care allowances, which was informed by consultation with stakeholders, caregivers and children and young people, decided that the allowance payment rate should be broken into three age groups: 0 to 4, 5 to 15 and 16-plus. Those age bands are comparable with those used in Wales for its allowance.

It is fair to say that the evidence is limited and rather mixed. Some people think that young children—babies and toddlers—are more costly to look after, while others think that older children are more costly to look after. The most recent research that we have seen, which was conducted by Moneyfarm, suggests that, in 2023, it is more costly to support a six to 11-year-old than it is to support a 12 to 14-year-old, and it attributes that to the cost of age-appropriate toys for younger children and the rate at which clothes—including school uniforms—and other such things need to be replaced.

The allowance has only just been introduced. It is a hugely positive move, but we are open to feedback from kinship carers and stakeholders. We will continue to gather that feedback and will consider the issue when we formally review the system’s implementation in the future, as I said.

Absolutely. I would already expect local authorities to do the right thing in circumstances such as those to which Mr Doris referred. However, as I have said, I expect that the refreshed guidance and the on-going work will make the situation much clearer for local authorities. We hope that the guidance will be published by the end of the year. I am very understanding of and switched on to that issue. I have dealt with my own such cases. As I said, we are trying to improve that and to provide more clarity for local authorities.