PE1420, in the name of Teresa McNally, on behalf of Clacks kinship carers, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to recognise the real value of kinship carers and give them parity with foster carers throughout Scotland. Members have a note on the petition.I welcome Teresa McNally, May Barker and Susan Douglas from Clacks kinship carers. Good afternoon, ladies. I believe that Teresa will give a short presentation of about five minutes.
Official Report · Committee
New Petitions
Kinship Carers (PE1420)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- Teresa McNally Clacks Kinship Carers 11
- Sandra White SNP 9
- May Barker Clacks Kinship Carers 4
- Mark McDonald SNP 4
- Anne McTaggart Lab 4
- John Wilson SNP 4
- Susan Douglas Clacks Kinship Carers 2
- Nanette Milne Con 2
- Angus MacDonald SNP 2
The record
42 contributions
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
Thank you for asking us back again. I thank Sandra White for accepting our original petition, which she did outside this very building. We welcome this opportunity to address the Public Petitions Committee.Local kinship carers welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision in 2007 to recognise the role that they play in looking after family members’ children. The details of our journey from January 2010 are in our petition, so I will not repeat them. Instead, I will express the outstanding concern of kinship carers, which is that they should be treated in a way that gives them equity with other carers.Recent research by the Poverty Alliance highlighted that child poverty in Scotland is expected to increase over the next three years, and recent figures show that half of the local authorities in Scotland have wards in which more than 30 per cent of children live in low-income households. There are also concerns about the impact of welfare reform. The new system is expected to take £500 million out of the pockets of disabled people in Scotland every year from 2013. That will have an impact on kinship carers and their looked-after children.Income inequality has continued to increase in Scotland and, despite high unemployment, we still work some of the longest hours in Europe—that includes carers. According to the Poverty Alliance, price increases could push another 170,000 Scottish households into fuel poverty, taking the total to nearly 1 million. Kinship carers are facing all of the above, plus the added pressure of being a parent to a grandchild or a niece or nephew, which is a vastly different role from being a grandparent, an aunt or an uncle.Although our group recognises the on-going need for respite for both child and carer and the need for continuance of the support group for kinship carers, whether they are formal or informal, our petition asks for kinship carers’ status and the important part that they play in the development and holistic wellbeing of vulnerable children to be acknowledged, and for them to have equity with foster carers throughout Scotland.We want the needs of the child to be put at the centre of any policy so that it is child-centred as opposed to budget driven, and we want entitlements for kinship carers to be clarified, because each Scottish local council interprets the current guidance in different ways.14:45
Kinship carers are like other full-time carers of vulnerable youngsters and we, too, need sickness and emergency cover and a right to time off because we have the responsibility of a parent and work 24/7. Kinship carers also need access to training on health and safety issues and training on managing and coping with the behaviour of their looked-after children.One of our committee members, who, unfortunately, cannot be here today, has frequently stated that it is not just about the allowance but about a recognition of the role and status of family members who step forward to look after their family members’ children, usually at a time of family crisis.
Thank you, Teresa. I met you and others a couple of weeks ago about the petition. I congratulate you on the petition and I congratulate Clackmannanshire Council and the three other councils that provide some form of parity for kinship carers. From what I gather, the money that councils pay to kinship carers ranges from £30 to £196. Obviously, you are here to challenge that anomaly. I was interested in your statement, though, that it is not just about the money. I know from meeting kinship carers in my constituency that they think that it is also about accessing child psychologists and so on. Could you elaborate on what other services kinship carers do not get that are available to, for instance, foster carers?
Susan Douglas
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
Our local authority does not even recognise us as carers. People who look after people with learning disabilities, elderly people or disabled people get invited to carers’ forums and so on, but kinship carers do not get invited to anything like that. There is nobody to support us. You are supposed to support your own child and your grandchild or your niece or nephew—it is a very hard thing to balance.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
As I think I said in my written statement, there is a need for respite and a break for both children and kinship carers. That will allow kinship carers to continue to do the job that they do with children who may be vulnerable and very damaged because there is drug and alcohol misuse in their households.I am not a kinship carer, but the group came to me because of my previous work in the health sector. That is why the two ladies beside me will be able to answer your detailed questions much better than I can.
May Barker
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
I think that I am a bit different in that this is the second time around for me as a kinship carer. The first time, I looked after two children, one of whom has grown up. I have only one child now. It is difficult for the social workers. I cannot say that this is always the case but, in my case, they took the part of the grown-up, even though the child I was looking after was a teenager. They just would not listen to what she needed. They need to listen to the children as well. It is not just about money. We could have done with quite a lot of care from psychological services, because the girl was damaged. Throwing money at us is not the answer. That is not just what we are here about.
The answers that the witnesses have just given perhaps have already addressed what I was going to ask. I do not think that anybody here would disagree that there needs to be parity on the funding, but is there also a need for parity of esteem? Is it the case that kinship carers do not have parity of esteem at present and that that needs to be addressed? That is as much a mindset issue as it is a money issue. We agree that parity in payments is needed, but a wider discussion needs to be had to ensure that kinship carers are given parity of esteem with foster carers.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
In the early days, the group approached elected members of Clackmannanshire Council and local MSPs; the local MP was also drawn in. Esteem is the issue—the value of kinship carers is not recognised. At that time, a senior council officer was challenged with the question, “What if we refused to continue to be carers?” The reply was that the council could not afford to keep the children, because a looked-after child’s care package of being placed with a foster carer or in an institution would be much more expensive.The issue is esteem and recognising the status of kinship carers, who care because they are family members. Many local kinship carers are not doing it because of the money. The money is a fairly new part of the solution. The issue was the council’s non-communication with the kinship carers who received the money, which was suddenly withdrawn without any discussion—there was no consultation at all. It was as if the kinship carers were not valued. That was the reason for the groundswell to try to convince the council to revisit the matter, which it has done. I give the council its place—it has put back some of the money, but that still does not have parity with payments to foster carers.
May Barker
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
Stigma is attached to kinship carers more than foster carers, especially in schools. We need help in getting children through that. As we have said, people need training to help, because they sometimes do not know how to cope with a crying child or teenager and do not know which way to turn. Sometimes, people are ready to put their coat on and walk—they feel like that often.
You do a fantastic job.
I welcome May Barker, Teresa McNally and Susan Douglas and thank them for their petition. I speak with a vested interest, as my background is in social work and I have dealt a lot with kinship carers, who provide value and not just monetary value. Being able to drop kids off with kinship carers is invaluable; the kids know the family member who is willing to take them in. It is important that kinship carers have recognition, as you have said, whether that relates to psychological services or even just self-esteem.A few weeks ago, I had a meeting with Who Cares? Scotland, which deals with looked-after and accommodated children. I am not sure whether it taps into kinship carers or people they look after. I know that there is a legal wrangle in the Scottish children’s panel service about the relevant legislation while children remain in kinship care. Does any of you deal with the charity Who Cares? Scotland for support for the young people you look after?
May Barker
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
No—not that I know of.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
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We have contacted the local carers, but they do not recognise us as carers. They have given us a lot of support, but the group’s members are not officially carers in the wider sense. Many kinship carers are informal. When care crosses over into involving social work services, kinship carers become more recognised, but the support is not the same as that for foster carers. That has been the driver all the time for us.We want to get equity. We had equity initially in Clackmannanshire Council in 2007, following the Scottish Government’s decision. One paper, of which I can give the committee a copy, said that the council thought that it might save money by encouraging kinship carers but found out that it did not, because so many children needed care and to be looked after.The wording “looked-after children” needs to be recognised. Kinship carers care for looked-after children, because those children are not with the parents who gave birth to them. We need to tussle with and change that bit, for the benefit of the children.I get so annoyed when I hear about the experiences of people such as Katherine Alexander. Listening to her, I could feel my anger rising. The rights of the individual and the rights of children are paramount here. We want the child or children—some of the kinship carers in our group have more than one child; they might also be caring for an elderly parent—to have the best quality of life. It does not surprise me that about 75 per cent of kinship carers are female because, in the caring sector, at least, it is usually females who do the looking after. I do not think that I have answered the question.We have been involved with Children 1st, Citizens Advice Scotland and About Families in producing a kinship care fact sheet. I do not know whether the committee has a copy of it, but it provides more information about kinship care in general. I would be happy to leave one for you to look at.
We often use the phrase “preventative spend”. That just sums up the fact that it would be much better to spend money before people go down the statutory route of being looked after and accommodated.You mentioned that kinship carers might look after an elderly relative as well as a child. Kinship carers often look after a parent of the young person and try tirelessly to access services for them.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
That is right.
I empathise with you, and I hope that we will keep the petition open and make progress with it.
I am pleased that we are considering your petition. I have tremendous admiration for what kinship carers do and what they go through, emotionally and in other ways, to look after youngsters, who are usually their grandchildren.We speak about informal and formal caring. In your experience, is there a significant difference between the treatment of informal carers and that of formal carers, or carers of looked-after children?
Susan Douglas
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
Once you have been through the court system and got guardianship and parental rights and responsibilities, your child is no longer a looked-after child, which means, basically, that you are finished with social services. Although your child’s behaviour can be challenging, unless the school or your health worker makes a referral, it is up to you. There is no on-going support for kinship carers.
There is another thing that bothers me. The strategy for foster and kinship care goes back to 2007. Are you saying that nothing much has happened since then as far as kinship carers are concerned? I would find it quite worrying if, five years later, we are not much further on.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
Councils took their own decisions about how much to spend on the issue. I do not think that the funding was ring fenced. There was a pot of money that came from the centre and guidance was provided. Clackmannanshire Council paid top whack—if that is the technical term—to kinship carers. At the time, what they got was on a par with what was provided to foster carers, but that was withdrawn. Suddenly, there was a recognition that what kinship carers were doing was good for society and the child or children they were looking after—they had a certain status and esteem—but that was withdrawn and it has never been replaced.I do not know whether all councils have introduced the kinship care allowance. I think that they had until last year or two years ago to do that. It is not a question of forcing councils to recognise kinship carers; it is about social esteem and recognising the value of kinship carers. We seem to be missing a trick. As I said earlier, if kinship carers withdrew their services, a lot of vulnerable children would have to be looked after by the state. I just cannot work out why people do not see the sense of that argument, which is why we thought about petitioning the committee and perhaps also Westminster and—who knows?—Europe. That would enable a wider, regional and Britain-wide view of benefits and so on to be taken.15:00
One of the points that was raised set off a little lightbulb. Do you agree that the informality of some arrangements can present a difficulty?I have represented constituents who have an informal kinship arrangement that has not involved a placement by social work. The family had—as families do—simply taken the decision to take a young person in and look after them. However, that can create a difficulty. If there is no social work involvement, it becomes difficult for the local authority to allocate money to the family, on the basis that it has had no involvement with the placement and the arrangements around that.You cannot have informal fostering—that must be done under a formal arrangement. There can be formal arrangements for kinship care that involve a formal placement by social work and regular social work involvement. However, there are also informal arrangements that take place without the knowledge or involvement of social work. There is perhaps a blurring of the lines in that regard, which should be examined in more detail.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
Yes, you are right. If someone is relatively well off, they do not have to ask the state for help. We are talking about a group of kinship carers who are not terribly well off. Some folk gave up their working arrangements because there was some money to give them some help. When that money was withdrawn, they were suddenly struggling. That can lead to poverty in the household, which means that the children miss out.I am not the expert on how to resolve that, but there must be a way to recognise kinship carers alongside foster carers, which might include an assessment of whether the child is in the appropriate place. All those things must be taken into account, because the child should be at the centre.Anne McTaggart mentioned the health issue. In the early days of our group, we looked with the help of our contact not only at social work, but at education and health. There is a practitioner who is involved in the group too. We see the child holistically—it is about not just one element, but the whole child. We are passionate about that.
I thank the petitioners for lodging the petition and appearing before us today. I agree with Ms McNally’s last sentiment: the child should be at the centre of what we do.There is a difficulty, as Mark McDonald mentioned, with regard to informal versus formal arrangements. I was on committees in the previous session—including this committee—that considered kinship care. Ms McNally referred to those who can afford kinship care without charging for that service, which is all very well for them, but other people might not be able to afford to do that.Parents or grandparents often do not want to go down the formal route for fear of intervention from social work departments. Once the care is formalised, there are formal processes, which means that there is regular oversight by the social work department and other agencies to ensure that the services are being provided correctly. That goes back to the heart of putting the child at the centre of the services that are provided.I am not sure if it is possible for you to answer this, and I know that you cannot speak for the whole of Scotland, but how many of your members provide care informally and how many have gone down the guardianship route to provide care under a formal arrangement that includes the social work department?
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
I do not have those figures with me today, but I can certainly find out for you. By suggesting that those who can afford it do not have to ask for state help, I am—perhaps inadvertently—saying that it is a basic entitlement. John Wilson is right to say that a lot of families will not—for a multitude of reasons—want social work to be involved. However, if we are putting the child at the centre and considering their needs, and one need is financial support—as well as all the other needs, such as respite and training for the family—surely such support should be at the top of the list to be provided to the youngster, whether it is provided by the council or whoever.As I said, many of the children we are talking about have been through a traumatic period—from babyhood, for some. Babies who are born to mothers who have misused drugs through their pregnancy have withdrawal symptoms. A child’s behaviour might be completely over the top, through no fault of their own. We were tempted to bring one such child with us today, to let you see what the kinship carer has to manage day by day and night by night. That is where the extra support is needed. The carer in question has recently been given some respite, but it is minimal. That is the bit that needs to be tackled, with the child at the centre of whatever services are provided, as you said.
That takes me back to the point that I was trying to make about informal versus formal arrangements. Whatever a child’s background, circumstances and personal situation, the Parliament and society should ensure that all the professional services are available to support the kinship carers and the child, to ensure that the child gets the best start in life.The difficulty is that informal arrangements leave the kinship carer and the child at a disadvantage, because the professional agencies who could intervene do not become involved. This is my honest assessment: if a carer continues with an informal arrangement, how does the local authority or the Scottish Government determine who should receive a kinship care allowance? Unless the arrangement is formalised in some way, authorities could be at the mercy of people who might come along and say, “I’ve taken on responsibility as a kinship carer. I don’t want to formalise the arrangement or register with the social work department or any other council or Government department, but I am looking for a kinship care allowance.” That is the difficulty, as I see it.How do we determine who should receive the allowance, bearing in mind what was said about people who can afford to be kinship carers and do not claim the allowance? If someone is genuinely providing kinship care, they should receive the appropriate allowance, irrespective of whether they have adequate funds to deal with the issue themselves. However, how can we get to a stage at which local authorities and others can appropriately assess whether a kinship care allowance is applicable to the child who is being looked after?
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
As I said, it is about not just the allowance but the avenue to other support and resources—respite, holidays, Christmas entitlements and so on. All those sorts of things come into it. I am not an expert in this, but I know that there is an issue to do with entitlement to free school dinners and so on. People have to be recognised before they can access the support.It is about equity with foster carers. If foster carers are recognised, as they rightly are—although I was listening to a programme on the radio yesterday and I learned that there is some inequity there—the kinship carer, or whatever carer, should have the same status and esteem for what they do for society. The child is paramount. It is about the needs of the child. There must be some way of assessing a child who is placed with a kinship carer, whether the placement is formal or informal, to allow access, whether people want that or not. I am not sure how that would work—I am not an expert in the field. You should be present when we get together on a Thursday to have a cup of tea, to hear about how people manage what they do while trying to run a household and sometimes even a job, too.
May Barker
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
We have one carer who is not recognised. Most of us take in children because we are asked to by social workers, and the children are damaged. I only know about this one case. There was a death, which meant that the carer had to take over care of the child and she is still caring for it. She is a kinship carer but she does not get anything. That is not because she does not want social workers to be involved; she took the child in because it was either that or see them go into the system.
Thank you. From your contribution and the questions that have been asked, we can see that it is obviously not just about the money, regardless of what that might be; it is about parity of services. Many of the kinship carers I have met have been in the same position as May Barker. It is sometimes difficult to get guardianship; or it can happen overnight. Someone might have to bring up grandchildren, or a sister or brother, or, in some cases, it might be a whole family of youngsters, along with their own family. By the time you have attended to their emotional needs, you might not get around to attending to the formalities, and some people do not want to go into the system.Teresa McNally also touched on the point about petitioning Westminster because of the Welfare Reform Bill. We know that if someone gets money for kinship care or foster care, that will have a direct effect on any benefits that they might get. We need to look at that side of the issue as well as the parity of care. The issue is a huge one; it is not just about kinship care, and I thank you for bringing that out during the discussions that we have had.I also draw the petitioners’ attention to the fact that the Education and Culture Committee has been working on the issue. It had a round-table discussion and it is calling on the Scottish Government and COSLA to come to give oral evidence. I am not saying that the Education and Culture Committee is carrying out an inquiry, but it has certainly had a recent round-table discussion on kinship care. I am talking about this because we must decide whether this committee should continue the petition or note it and pass it to the Education and Culture Committee, because it will take evidence from the Government and COSLA. This committee can do what it likes. If the petition goes to the Education and Culture Committee, I would like to see the petitioners, as kinship carers, being invited to give evidence to that committee along with the Government and COSLA. It is open to the committee to discuss the petition but if the Education and Culture Committee has already considered the issues, it would be a great opportunity for the petitioners to give evidence. I cannot read the minds of the members of the Education and Culture Committee but I am sure that they would not say no if this committee passed the petition over and asked it to invite the petitioners to give evidence. It is certainly going down the right road.We would certainly write to COSLA and others to ask for evidence, so if the Education and Culture Committee is also bringing those organisations in to give evidence, it would be great to use that. What are the rest of the committee thinking?
That is an excellent idea, convener. If we do pass the petition on, we should ensure that the petitioners get the opportunity to go along and express their concerns and give their thoughts to the Education and Culture Committee.
I do not want to put the petitioners on the spot, but would you be happy with that? If you were invited to give evidence to the Education and Culture Committee, you would not be averse to it.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
We would be more than pleased to talk to anyone who will listen. We have chapped on that many doors and we do not mind who listens as long as, at the end of the day, we can change something that is not happening at the moment. That has been the whole driving force behind what we have been doing.I have been looking through the factsheet for John Wilson. It mentions the formal and informal carers but it does not have a breakdown between the two; that will be somewhere or other. If I leave that factsheet, will it be helpful to you?15:15
We have that information. I was really just trying to get an idea of what the breakdown was in your group so that we could try to translate it Scotland-wide. We are dealing with your group in this petition and you are giving evidence from the experience of your group, but the experience is no doubt replicated across 32 local authorities. Although there might be some variance in the amount of kinship care payments local authorities make and how they allocate those payments, I wanted to get an idea of the informal/formal arrangements. In your oral evidence, you gave some examples of individuals who provide such care on an informal basis, but clearly for the wider discussion and our response we need to consider how to determine how those payments could be made and accessed as well as, as you quite rightly said, the services that would normally be provided by other professionals and other agencies to people who require support for the children they are looking after.
Teresa McNally
Clacks Kinship Carers
link
I am sure that back at the ranch we have a breakdown of who is informal and who is formal within the group. I am happy to give that to whoever I should send it to.
To clarify, convener, if we are minded to pass this to the Education and Culture Committee, the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing states that the responses from the local authorities, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Scottish Government are due to be considered at the meeting today. Would it be prepared to extend the timescale to accept a response from Clacks kinship carers?
Perhaps I did not explain this correctly. The Education and Culture Committee had a round-table meeting today and—you are quite right, Angus—mentioned that it would write to those people. It is considering a further meeting and will call in the Scottish Government and COSLA to hear their responses. My idea was that it would be a good opportunity for the kinship carers to give evidence at that same meeting, as the investigation is ongoing. The evidence from today’s meeting would be there, too, and any paperwork or evidence we have here would go on to that committee, too.
Okay.
I do not want to be a pooh-pooher, convener, because as you know it is not my style, but I wondered whether we should continue the petition ourselves. For too long, this debate has been taking place and nobody has ever gone out to the individual local authorities and asked what their policy is on kinship carers and why they make the payments they do for kinship care and foster care. The petition presents this committee with a golden opportunity to write to every local authority in Scotland and ask what payments they make to kinship carers, what their policy is for kinship carers vis-à-vis parity of esteem and how they reconcile the difficulties of the formal versus informal situation that the committee has recognised. Is there perhaps a way in which we could do the two in tandem? I wonder whether there is some jiggery-pokery we can do to keep the petition here while also having it considered by the Education and Culture Committee. If that is away to be done, I will be absolutely happy, but there is an opportunity here to hold local authorities to account for their policy on kinship carers.
I do not know the exact wording of the questions and letters that the Education and Culture Committee sent out to COSLA, but I understand that it has written to local authorities to ask those very questions. Like you, I think that this is a very important issue and I do not want people to miss out on an opportunity. Perhaps we could do some of what you call jiggery-pokery to find out exactly what the Education and Culture Committee asked.
I remind committee members and members of the public that the committee can do one of two things: we can continue to consider the petition as a committee in our own right, or we can refer it to another committee of the Parliament to deal with. However, we cannot do both at the same time, despite the new parliamentary language that has been invented today for how to take issues forward.I have an alternative suggestion, which is that we should not refer the petition at this stage, but should instead allow the clerks and the convener to consider the remit of the Education and Culture Committee’s inquiry into kinship care to determine whether contact is being made with the 32 local authorities—as Mark McDonald suggests that we do—how that information will come back to the committee and how it would take forward the petition. At our next meeting, we can determine whether to continue the petition or leave it to the Education and Culture Committee to deal with as part of its inquiry.I know from previous experience in the Parliament that, if we hold on to the petition and write to COSLA or any other body, the immediate answer will be to refer us to the evidence that it has already provided to the Education and Culture Committee. There is a danger that we undermine our consideration of the petition. As I said, if possible—I seek guidance from the clerks on this—we should allow the clerks and the convener or deputy convener to determine, by looking at the remit of the Education and Culture Committee inquiry, whether that inquiry goes far enough to encompass the petition.
This is not intended to muddy the water but, although John Wilson’s suggestion is a good one, I will go slightly further and suggest that, as well as delegating to the convener and deputy convener along with the clerks the job of speaking to the Education and Culture Committee convener, if it is felt that that committee would welcome having the petition passed to it, we should allow our convener and deputy convener to decide to do that, so that we do not hold up the process by waiting for the petition to come back to our next meeting. This committee meets fortnightly, whereas the Education and Culture Committee meets weekly. At our next meeting, we can simply get a report back from the convener and the clerks on the outcome of the discussions. That would mean that we do not delay the process by waiting for a report back to the committee in two weeks.
We all want to move forward on the petition as positively as possible. The Education and Culture Committee cannot tell the Public Petitions Committee what to do—it is our decision. However, I am sure that we can work on the issue and speak nicely to the Education and Culture Committee. I agree entirely with John Wilson. One of the thrusts of the discussion was that we should find out whether the Education and Culture Committee has written to ask the same questions that we would ask. We have to do that. We will keep the petition open and the clerks will liaise with the Education and Culture Committee.I will go one further, too, and ask the clerks to suggest to the Education and Culture Committee that, if it thinks it proper, it should invite the petitioners to give evidence at its evidence session with the Government. That would be positive. We will consider the answers from the Education and Culture Committee at our next meeting. If we can give evidence and if we get the proper information back from the Education and Culture Committee, we will certainly know where we are going with the petition. Do members agree to that approach?Members indicated agreement.
I thank May Barker, Teresa McNally and Susan Douglas for their evidence.15:24 Meeting suspended.
15:27 On resuming—
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