After years of battling against Surrey County Council a grandfather has today won the right to be paid a fostering allowance for looking after his grand child who was placed with him by the council.

The grandfather, and child, CO, cannot be named for legal reasons.

In 2009, CO was living with her mother and two siblings. The home life was very chaotic. CO has a number of difficulties including mental health problems and challenging behaviour. By September 2009, the council decided to put in place an intensive support package. At the same time the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service refused to provide help to CO until the home life was more settled.

By late October the council were clear that the intensive support package had not worked. On the 5th November 2009 the council met with CO’s grandparents and asked them to look after CO, who was then aged 10 years, until she was 18. They made it clear that she could not stay with the mother. At the time the grandparents and mother were not speaking to each other, therefore the mother was not involved in the meeting. The grandparents asked what sort of support they could expect given CO’s additional needs. They were handed a leaflet called ‘kinship care’ which went into detail about the support which could be expected if the local authority had placed the child.

The grandparents took the weekend to consider whether they were able to commit to such a task. They confirmed with the council on the Wednesday that they would look after CO. The council confirmed that they would speak to the mother and make the arrangements for CO to move to the grandparents. After the move the council continued to be involved in order to arrange contact between CO, her mother and siblings.

Over the next few months the grandparents were very busy looking after CO and with various other caring commitments, however by April 2010 they were finding the financial burden of looking after another child quite difficult to meet. SGF and his wife looked into their situation and based on the leaflet they were provided believed that they should be treated as foster carers.

They made a complaint to the council about the fact that they should be treated as foster carers and should be receiving a fostering allowance for CO. The complaint went all the way through the complaints process and then to the Local Government Ombudsman. The Local Government Ombudsman found that the council had failed to carryout the necessary assessments and therefore could not categorically say that the grandparents should have been treated as foster carers.

Disappointed with the outcome they then instructed specialist law firm Ridley & Hall Solicitors. They wrote to the council in an attempt to resolve the issues without the need to go to court but the council took months to respond and when they did it was negative. Once proceedings were issued the court indicated that the parties should meet and try to resolve the issues. First the council agreed to such a meeting but as time passed it then decided not to engage.

Unfortunately, this all added to the stress the family were under, in particular the grandparents, who were still struggling to meet the financial and behavioural needs of the child as well as meeting their own needs. Sadly the grandmother was diagnosed with a terminal illness during the summer but continued to fight the council in order to get them to do what she believed it was already supposed to have done.

Today the High Court has handed down the judgment which has confirmed that the grandparents were right; the council should have been paying a fostering allowance to the grandparents. The allowance paid by the council for a child of CO’s age is over £246 per week. The council have been order to pay the allowance backdated to 3 months before the proceedings were issued. The sum is likely to be in excess of £17,000.

Solicitor Rebecca Chapman commented:

“It has been a hard battle to fight as the local authority has been unwilling to engage with us and did not provide all the evidence we requested. It was also quite strange that the hand written minutes of the meeting where the council asked the grandparents to care never made it onto the social care file and at some point was shredded.

“It is a shame that the family had to resort to High Court proceedings and that the local authority was not willing to consider settling the matter. However, the grandparents have now been justified in their pursuit of the local authority. It is clear that the local authority has tried to get out of their duties owed to the child.

“The local authority is now responsible to pay a fostering allowance which has been backdated until January 2013, as well as our legal costs. It would have been much better for the welfare of CO and probably cheaper if they had just complied with their duties in the first place.

“This case also shows the usefulness of judicial review in ensuring the government comply with the law. It is so unfortunate that the government are now trying to restrict the availability of such a process. Such a restriction will have a detrimental impact on the most vulnerable in society.”

“However, the victory is accompanied by sadness as CO’s grandmother passed away at the end of October and sadly did not see the result of her battle.”

If you require any further information please contact Rebecca Chapman at Ridley & Hall Solicitors, 01484 538421 or by e-mail.