Foster and kinship carers - Scottish Recommended Allowance: implementation review

Payment and Receipt of the SRA

Age bands and calculation of the SRA

The National Review of Care Allowances (2018) recommended that the SRA payment rates were broken down into three age groups: 0-4 years; 5-15 years; and 16-17 years. However, the allowances were presented across four categories to mirror the four age categories (0-5, 5-10, 11-15, 16-17) that were used by local authorities in Scotland, mainly to aid administration in any transition from old to new payment rates. Specifically, it was decided that presenting the SRA as four categories was more straightforward, as local authorities would not require any alterations to their existing systems or ways of working to aid implementation. It was also hoped that this banding would be more transparent and easier to understand for caregivers.

The Scottish Government developed the SRA rates for children in kinship and foster care based on various sources. This included the independent Analytical evidence on the ‘cost of a child research carried out by Fraser of Allander Institute in 2018.

The model and supporting principles adopted a rights-based approach to understanding the needs and characteristics of kinship and foster families. This took into account the differing number of carers and children within households, as well as establishing an expenditure level that would secure a reasonable standard of living.

A 50% weighting was added to the cost of a child, to account for the additional costs of a looked after child. This was consistent with earlier research^[5], as well as practice across other parts of the UK. These values from 2018 were uprated prior to the SRA’s commencement in August 2023 on a similar basis as used for other payments to households, but also taking account of affordability and deliverability.

The final agreed weekly allowances, which were backdated to 1 April 2023, were:

• 0 to 4 year-olds - £168.31
• 5 to 10 year-olds - £195.81
• 11 to 15 year-olds - £195.81
• 16-years-old and over - £268.41

Payment of the SRA by Local Authorities

All local authorities who took part in the survey reported that they were paying at least the SRA across their entire local authority area to foster carers providing long term, permanent, interim, short break and short-term foster placements for all age bands. Similarly, all but one local authority said that they were paying at least the SRA across their entire local authority area for formal kinship carers (where the child has looked after status), for all age bands.

There was less consistency with regards to local practice for paying at least the SRA for eligible informal kinship carers (where the child is subject to a Kinship Care Order (KCO) and is/was previously ‘looked after’ or at risk of becoming ‘looked after’). While 24 out of the 30 participating authorities confirmed that they were paying this for all age bands, three noted that this was paid only for some. Among these, one authority noted that, if the family was assessed as being eligible for kinship allowance, they would pay the same rate regardless of the status of the child. Another noted that where a kinship allowance was being paid, it would be in line with the SRA and that kinship allowance was paid to eligible carers up to the point Child Benefit stops for the child/young person. Any Section 29 payments beyond that point were paid on the basis of assessed individual need. The third gave no explanation for not paying the same to all.

A further three authorities noted that they were not paying at least the SRA for eligible informal kinship carers. In one case, this was an area of practice that was said to be ‘under review’. A second authority confirmed that they do not pay informal kinship carers and instead pay the SRA only for all formal kinship carers of children placed by Social Work subject to Section 25, Section 83, kinship carers who have Kinship Care Orders, and children who are at risk of becoming looked after. The third authority noted that they classed placements subject to a Kinship Care Order as ‘formal’ (and pay the SRA), however, they classed placements not secured by any legal order differently, (even when social work are involved and the child is/was previously ‘looked after’ or at risk of becoming ‘looked after’). These carers are paid £50 per week.

Local authorities were also asked if they were currently paying any allowances at a higher rate than the SRA rate.

Just under half of authorities that responded (n=13) noted that they paid all carers in line with the SRA and a similar number (n=12) noted that they paid above the SRA for some children only. Only three authorities noted that they paid a higher rate for all children. In all of these cases the authorities reported that this was because they increased their allowances every year as standard, either at 3% or based on the rate of inflation. These routine annual increases meant that their allowances were now higher than the SRA rates.

Reported Receipt of the SRA by Carers

All carer survey respondents were asked, for each child that they cared for in each age band, how many were receiving the set SRA rate, above or below.

Most foster and kinship carers reported that they were receiving the set SRA rate. However, among those that were not, foster carers were more likely to be receiving above the SRA rate (with the exception of the 16+ age group), while kinship carers were more likely to be receiving below the SRA rate.

Those who either reported that they did not receive the SRA payment or were receiving an allowance rate below the SRA rate, were asked to explain why this was the case (if known) and what impact (if any) this had on their family. While 33 respondents (including 10 foster and 23 kinship carers) indicated that they received below the SRA rate, several others also provided information at these questions.

Foster carers who said they did not receive the SRA payment/SRA rate included a mix of local authority (n=8) foster carers, and those working for IFAs (n=2). Those working for IFAs indicated that they received their set payments from their agency and were unsure about how this related to the SRA rate. Those fostering via local authorities did not generally know why they were receiving less, except in one case where they were providing continuing care for a young person over the age of 18 and were not receiving payments for this.

Among the others who provided feedback at these questions, five indicated that they did not know whether they received the full SRA rate or not, due to the way the payments were made, particularly in relation to short-term placements and respite care. One foster carer also indicated that payments were not always made promptly upon placements starting and/or for short-term/respite care, and that it was often difficult for foster carers to know what they should be receiving in such cases. Another noted that funding was not being passed on from local authorities to IFAs to cover any uplift required in the allowance rates paid.

Kinship carers who did not receive the SRA payment/SRA rate said this was mainly because deductions were made from the allowance to account for other benefit payments. These included child benefit/family allowance and the child payment element of Universal Credit. Importantly, a few respondents noted that deductions were made for child benefit even when this was not being claimed. Other respondents did not know why they were being paid less, and in some cases were receiving around half as much as the relevant SRA rate. Two kinship carers who received no allowance payments noted that, due to barriers, a lack of support from their local authority, and a lack of knowledge and awareness of the system at the outset, they had been unable to secure formal kinship care status and were considered as having private arrangements, and were therefore ineligible for the payments.

Publication of Current Allowances Information

At the launch of the SRA, Scottish Government and COSLA agreed that local authorities would publish online their allowances for foster and kinship carers. This was to include key details of rates, entitlement, eligibility criteria, how it will be assessed and where more information can be found. In addition, there is also a legal duty under Part 13 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (Support for Kinship Care) and The Kinship Care Assistance (Scotland) Order 2016 for local authorities to publish information about the provision of kinship care assistance in their local authority area, and this includes the rate at which allowances are paid.

Most local authorities (n=25) reported that the foster care page on their website had been updated since the implementation of the SRA to show the current rate of allowances for foster carers. Three said that it had not and two indicated that they did not know.

Almost the same number (n=24) reported that the kinship page on their local authority website had been updated since the implementation of the SRA to show the current rate of allowances for kinship carers. Six reported that it had not.

Verification of Current Rates

Local authorities were only asked to specify their current rates where they indicated that these had not been updated online since the introduction of the SRA. Information from both sources was combined (i.e. published rates were combined or updated as per survey responses as required) to generate a final set of rates.

This resulted in some gaps in the data where authorities said that their online information had been updated but it could not be found during independent checking. Across all 32 local authorities, information was unavailable for foster carer rates in five areas, and in six areas for kinship carers.

Using these final rates, the data show that, while most authorities are indeed paying in line with the SRA, there remains some variability across different age bands for both fostering and kinship care.

Foster Carer Rates Online

For foster carers, the most significant deviation from SRA rates appears to be for those aged 11-15, with half of authorities (n=16, 50%) showing that they paid higher rates for this age band on their respective websites. The available rates for three authorities also suggest that they are paying above the SRA for all age bands for foster care.

There are no authorities that appear to be paying below the SRA for all age bands (although one authority website suggests that they are paying below the SRA for all except those aged 11-15).

Kinship Carer Rates Online

The final rates (either from local authority websites or updated information provided via the survey) suggest that most authorities are paying in line with the SRA for kinship carers. Again, however, a large number of authorities (n=13, 41%) are paying above the SRA for those aged 11-15 in kinship care (slightly fewer than appear to be paying above the SRA for children in foster care of the same age).

The data for four authorities suggest that they are paying above the SRA for all age bands and four appear to be paying below the SRA for all age bands for those in kinship care.

The online allowances data also suggests that slightly more authorities are paying below the SRA for children in kinship care across the different age bands compared to those in foster care.

Overall, the allowances data published online contradicts some respondents’ survey responses that they were paying in line with or above the SRA for some or all children (as above). Possible explanations include:

• that the allowances data published online on local authority websites are not current or accurate;
• that some of the published allowances reflect payments before social security deductions are made while others are shown inclusive of deductions; and
• that some websites include/exclude fees data for foster carers in the rates shown.

Regardless of the reasons for the discrepancy, this finding has implications for transparency, both in terms of the accuracy of published information and the consistency of payments being made.

Paying Above and Below SRA

Where local authorities reported that they were paying above the SRA rates for some children, this was typically because they were already paying above the SRA before its implementation, and to reduce the allowance was seen as inappropriate. This is in line with the Scottish Government and COSLA agreement that, where local authorities were already paying above the SRA, allowances would not be reduced, so that kinship or foster carers currently in receipt of an allowance would not be worse off.

Other reasons for paying above the SRA were in cases where children had particularly complex needs and enhanced rates were seen as appropriate i.e. paid to Level 3 foster carers. One authority noted that decisions for enhanced allowances were based on the individual circumstances and needs of the child[ren], including where this placed additional demands on the carers.

Two authorities reported that they had applied an uplift of 3% to their allowances since the SRA was introduced (linked to cost of living/inflation), which accounted for the higher payments.

Several authorities commented that they had not reduced or lowered previously higher rates as this was seen in the best interests of children, young people and their carers, especially where classification into different age bandings may have left them disadvantaged. One authority specified that higher rates were paid for a small number of carers that were part of the historic categorised level scheme.

In one area, the new age bandings meant that children between the ages of 11-15 would have been disadvantaged if the SRA was applied and so a decision had been made to continue to pay at the old rate for such children until they reached 16 and moved to the next allowance rate (with all new placements paid at the SRA rate).

No authorities reported that they had reduced the amounts paid to carers following the introduction of the SRA (i.e. where they previously paid above the SRA rates). They were clear that no carers should be worse off with the introduction of the SRA and this had driven their post-SRA allowance decisions. Again, however, this was not supported by allowance information published online, and there were also some suggestions from interviews that this was not the case (some carers and TSOs reported that some authorities had indeed reduced allowances).

No specific question was asked about reasons for paying below the SRA.

Comparison with Pre-SRA Rates

Data on pre-SRA allowances paid to carers by local authorities were already held by the Scottish Government, and therefore did not require to be collected as part of the survey^[6]. This data was merged with the published online rates and any updated survey findings, to facilitate analysis of any changes to rates pre- and post-SRA.

To protect anonymity, analysis focussed on the number of authorities in aggregate who were now paying more, less or the same as the pre-SRA period.

Foster Care Allowances

The table below shows the number of authorities who appear to be paying more, less or the same allowance rates to foster carers for children in each band, pre- and post-SRA implementation.

At the aggregate level, most authorities are now paying higher rates than before the SRA was introduced. In only a very small number of cases are authorities paying lower rates in any age band (n=5, although this ranged from a 1p reduction to a £40 reduction per week), and these ‘below SRA’ payments were spread across five different areas (meaning that all authorities were paying at least the SRA for most children). Nearly one third of authorities (n=9) said that they were paying the same for children aged 11-15 both pre- and post-SRA, with fewer paying the same for those aged 0-4 (n=3), 5-10 (n=3) and 16+ (n=1) pre- and post-SRA.

The table below shows the average allowances for foster carers, per age band, both pre- and post-SRA, as well as the difference between the two rates (based on 27 authorities where information was available):

The biggest aggregate average increase has been for children in the 5-10 age band (at +£34.48) and for those aged 16+ (at +£34.65). The smallest aggregate average increase appears to have been for those aged 11-15 (at +£8.20). However, the table below shows that the average pre-SRA rates for this group were also closest in value to the new SRA rates that were introduced (i.e. they had been, on average, £4.86 above the recommended allowance).

The table below shows the minimum and maximum foster allowances being paid both pre- and post- SRA implementation by age group, for all authorities where data were available.

While the data suggests that there remains a wide range in payments being made across local authorities, the difference between the minimum and maximum rates being paid post-SRA is smaller for all age bands (at the aggregate level) compared to pre-SRA. While variation exists, therefore, this has shrunk since the SRA was introduced.

Kinship Carer Allowances

Again, based on the data provided by the Scottish Government and the data currently available on local authority websites (and updated by information in the survey responses where required), the table below shows the number of authorities who appear to be paying more, less or the same allowance rates to kinship carers for children in each band, pre- and post-SRA implementation.

Again, at the aggregate level authorities appear to be paying higher rates to kinship carers in most age bands. However, the overall improvement in allowances across those authorities where data are available appears to be less pronounced overall compared to foster carers.

The number of authorities who appear to be paying lower rates to kinship carers post-SRA is also notably higher when compared to foster carers - six separate local authorities appear to be paying less for one age band, one local authority appears to be paying less across three age bands, and one appears to pay less for children across all age bands. The main difference when compared to foster carers is the number of authorities who appear to be paying lower rates rather than the same as pre-SRA.

The table below shows the average allowances for kinship carers, per age band, both pre- and post-SRA, as well as the difference between the two rates (where information was available).

As with foster carers, the allowances for kinship carers overall appear to be higher post-SRA (where data are available). Again, the largest increases appear to be among the 16+ age group (at +£30.06), and the 5-10 age group (at +£28.01). The change in the allowance for those aged 11-15, however, is slightly lower for kinship carers (at +£3.61) compared to foster carers (at +£8.20). The average post-SRA rates appear to be slightly lower for kinship carers compared to foster carers across all age groups.

The table below shows the average pre-SRA rates for kinship carers and the difference compared to SRA rates.

Similar to the difference for foster carers, the SRA represented an uplift for most kinship age groups, with the exception of the 11-15 age group. At each of the age bands, the SRA represented similar levels of change for both kinship and foster carers.

The table below shows the minimum and maximum kinship allowances being paid both pre- and post-SRA implementation by age group, for all authorities where data were available.

As with the foster allowance data, the data suggest that there remains a wide range in payments across local authorities. Again, however, the difference between minimum and maximum rates being paid post-SRA is considerably smaller for all age bands (at the aggregate level) compared to pre-SRA. The difference between the minimum and maximum allowances being paid is also smaller for kinship carers compared to foster carers for all age bands.

Overall, for both foster and kinship allowances, the data that are available online contradicted authorities’ own responses that none had reduced the amounts paid to carers following the introduction of the SRA. The data also show that there remains significant variation in what is being paid to both foster and kinship carers by area.

Payment of the SRA by Independent Fostering Agencies (IFAs)

Due to very low number of responses from IFAs, there was little available data to emerge from the research with regards to rates paid to foster carers outside of local authority arrangements. Only five gave specific allowance information, and one gave information which combined allowances and fees and so was not usable.

Among the five who did provide rate information, IFA rates appeared to be lower than those paid by local authorities for all those aged 5+. That being said, the average was higher than the SRA for the three lower age bands, and only marginally below the SRA for those aged 16+ (despite all IFAs saying that they did not ever pay below SRA rates).

The ranges in rates reported by those who took part was significantly narrower than the ranges reported by local authorities, as shown below. The ranges appear to be attributable to much higher maximum rates being paid by some local authorities compared to IFAs, with the value of the minimum amounts not being so starkly different between IFAs and local authorities. It is difficult to say, however, if the narrower variation overall can be accounted for simply by the small number of providers who gave rate data rather than reflecting a more generalisable trend in the sector.

Of the five IFAs that took part in the survey, all worked across more than one authority and most covered several different areas. All noted that they paid the same foster allowances across all areas that they operated in.

Reported Receipt of the SRA among IFA Foster Carers

As IFAs do not have to publish their allowance rates online (in the way that local authorities agreed to), foster carers who provide services via an IFA were asked a series of questions related to the SRA rates to try and achieve a better understanding of allowances paid in this sector.

Of the 11 IFA carers who took part in the survey, all worked for one of just two named fostering agencies (one respondent did not identify their agency).

In most situations, respondents indicated that their IFA was paying at least the SRA rate for all children (n=7), one said it was only paid for some children, and two did not know. One respondent also noted that any extent to which their IFA met the SRA rates was only valid from April 2024 onwards, as no backdated payments were made.

The respondent who stated that their agency paid the SRA rate for only some children was also asked if they had been notified about when they would start to receive the SRA rate for all children. They had not.

All IFA foster carers were also asked whether the allowance they currently received from their fostering agency had caused them to consider any of the following changes:

• moving to a different independent fostering agency - three said it had;
• becoming a local authority foster carer - four said it had; and
• leaving their role as a foster carer - four said it had.

These numbers represent only four individuals from the 11 private foster carers who took part (i.e. the same carers said that they had considered each of the above, rather than these being more widespread views across the sample).

Respondents explained that they had considered these changes due to the low allowances and fees currently being paid, which were not considered to be enough to cope with rising prices and to reflect the level of input required from foster carers. A few indicated that they would reconsider their position as a foster carer when their current child placement ended:

“When we started, fostering provided a good income, now we just make ends meet, cost of living has no way been reflected in how foster carers are paid.” (Foster Carer)

“I was paid more at a different agency. The remuneration doesn’t cover cost of living for a child and if my husband didn’t work full time we wouldn’t be able to foster a child.” (Foster Carer)