Fostering and Kinship Care
The next item of business is a debate on motion S3M-965, in the name of Adam Ingram, on fostering and kinship care.
One of the most important responsibilities of government is the care and protection of our most vulnerable children. We were all dismayed by the 2006-07 looked-after children statistics, which showed an unacceptable lack of progress in the achievement of educational outcomes and positive destinations. The Scottish Government is resolute in its determination to support all children and young people in fulfilling their potential. There is nothing inevitable about looked-after children doing less well than their peers. "We can and must do better" is not just the name of a strategy but a stark challenge to us all to transform life chances for those children. There is no magic bullet; there is no one easy and straightforward approach. We must tackle this huge and varied challenge on a number of fronts in partnership—across Parliament, across government bodies and across the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors.
Yesterday, we published "Getting it right for every child in kinship and foster care". I am delighted to say that it is the first joint strategy between the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, following the signing of our concordat last month. That approach heralds a new partnership between national and local government. It is fitting that our most vulnerable children—those who are looked after away from their families—and their dedicated carers should be the first to benefit from such a collaboration.
Together, we intend to work towards fulfilling the five key principles that are at the heart of the strategy: first, that the needs of the child must be paramount; secondly, that families should be supported to stay together; thirdly, that where the child needs to be away from their birth parents, care within the family circle should be the first option, unless it is not in the best interests of the child.
Ministers have specified the allowances that are to be paid. When will they be paid? How will the Government ensure that they are paid by all councils?
The concordat specifically commits the Government and COSLA to providing allowances for kinship carers, and the cash settlement covers that, as it covers payments for foster carers. The current payment of allowances will continue, and I anticipate that kinship care allowances will start in April 2008.
There are two other principles in the strategy. Fourthly, that all placements should be designed to achieve stability; and fifthly, that appropriate support should be provided.
How will we achieve those principles? As I stated in our debate on early years and early intervention, we must focus on prevention and on helping to build resilience in children and families in the early years, identifying at an early stage those families who need more support. Then, we can mobilise agencies, under the getting it right for every child framework, to address problems before they become crises.
There will always be some cases where the interests of the child are best served by their being away from home. Removing a child of any age from their parents, whether for just a brief period or whether there is a possibility of permanence, is a huge step that places a great responsibility on both the local authority, as the corporate parent, and on the carer of the child. When that occurs, we want to support the wider family circle in looking after the child, where that is in his or her best interests.
The majority of kinship carers do not want or need any interference by the state, but they might welcome the occasional helping hand to ensure that both they and the children in their care get the support that they need. That is why I am delighted that Citizens Advice Scotland will establish a national framework of information services that are tailored to the needs of children in kinship care arrangements. Not only will kinship carers be able to get specialist advice and support from any citizens advice bureau in Scotland, local citizens advice bureaux will provide support to local kinship care groups and to the professionals who advise them.
All of us welcome the support that citizens advice bureaux can give to kinship carers. Can the minister tell me how much money the Government has set aside for local authorities to pay for kinship allowances?
As was explained previously, the Government will settle a block grant for local authorities.
We have considered carefully the needs of looked-after children who live with kinship carers. It cannot be justified that such children who are looked after and for whom the state is the corporate parent receive less practical and financial support than they would in foster care. The strategy therefore sets out our proposals to achieve parity and equity of support for all children who are looked after and accommodated in kinship or foster care.
I am sorry to return to the issue of money, but it would be helpful to know how much has been added to the local government block to accommodate the required increase in resources. I do not think that we have had clarity from the minister on that point. Can he help us?
I would have thought that what matters is the impact of what we do through our agreements with local authorities and the outcomes, rather than the inputs. I make no apologies for giving the answer that I gave earlier.
Will the minister give way on a similar, but not financial, point?
Yes.
As well as helping financially, we need to encourage more fosterers. I note the recent change in the law. When does the minister plan to publish the regulations on fostering and when will they come into force?
The draft regulations were published yesterday. This evening, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and I are going to an event to launch them formally. There will be consultation on the regulations, which will close in March. I am not sure when we will be in a position to launch the regulations thereafter. I will write to the member about the details of that.
It follows that children in kinship care should be afforded the same level of protection and quality assurance as children in foster care. A light-touch approval process for kinship carers will ensure that the kinship carer can meet the child's needs and it will clarify how the kinship carer will be supported to do so. That will include payment of a financial allowance by the local authority at the same rate as that paid by the authority to a foster carer, minus child benefit, to which a kinship carer is entitled but a foster carer is not.
Our fourth principle is about achieving stability. We must be in no doubt that reducing the drift and uncertainty that too many looked-after children face will require a transformational effort across all the care settings—our early intervention work, foster care, kinship care, residential care and adoption. What kind of life experience are we offering our most vulnerable children when, of the 4,313 children who were looked after away from home for more than two years, 40 per cent—or 1,800—had experienced three to five placements and 521 had experienced six or more placements?
From early 2009, there will be a new legislative tool. The permanence order, which was introduced by the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007, will give children for whom adoption or return to family is not possible the assurance of a permanent home with an approved carer or in an appropriate residential setting. Preparations for that change are well under way.
The final strand of our strategy is to identify a proper and appropriate level of support for kinship and foster carers. The Scottish Government and COSLA have established a multidisciplinary reference group, co-ordinated by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering and the Fostering Network, to develop proposals on the recruitment and support of carers that are informed by best practice. It will report in the second half of 2008 and its recommendations will cover recruiting the right range and number of carers to meet the needs of children; providing a consistent assessment and approval process for foster and kinship carers; providing improved training arrangements to meet the requirements of today's and future carers; and identifying whether existing organisational arrangements for placing children in foster and kinship care are fit for the challenges that I have outlined.
The strategy sets out the vision and signals a joint commitment to deliver. However, we recognise that it is only the first step towards a genuinely child-centred system. Our next step is to embed into the legislation the getting it right principles. As I said, this evening, I will officially launch a consultation on regulations for looked-after children. We are consulting on a number of issues: the approval of foster carers and kinship carers; how we can address any shortcomings that are identified in the recent report from the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care on the quality of fostering services; improving the planning process for the child; creating and retaining records; and removing existing barriers to recruitment by lifting the prohibition on fostering by same-sex couples.
Taking forward the strategy will be the joint responsibility of the Scottish Government and local authorities. However, the people who do the really hard work are those who pick the child up from school, read them their goodnight story, take them to the nurse or dentist and give them a hug when they pass a test in class. All children need and deserve a carer who cherishes them and stands by them through thick and thin. I intend to ensure that this strategy will help more vulnerable children to get that type of care. We owe them nothing less.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises that the needs of a child are paramount and that families should be supported to stay together; agrees that, where the child needs to live away from his or her birth parents, care within the family circle by a kinship carer should be the first option unless it is not in the best interests of the child; believes that all placements for a child who must live away from his or her birth parents must provide a safe and nurturing home, whether for a planned short-term period or on a permanent basis, and affirms its commitment to the provision of equitable and appropriate support for all carers of looked-after children, with systems in place to ensure that carers can provide the best possible opportunities and chances to all looked-after children.
On behalf of my Labour colleagues, I welcome the launch of the strategy that is outlined in "Getting it right for every child in kinship and foster care", which continues work that was started by the previous, Labour-led, Scottish Executive and was supported by the Education Committee in the previous session. I am aware that a number of people—some of whom are present here today—were members of that committee, including the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, who has just left the chamber, the Minister for Children and Early Years, Ken Macintosh and Wendy Alexander. Although all of those members can be proud of their work, it was Wendy Alexander, upon taking up her role as leader of the Labour group in this Parliament, who asked the First Minister on 27 September to provide the £10 million that is required to ensure that kinship carers receive the same allowance that is paid to foster carers. I am sure that the cross-party support that she assured him of in that regard will be in evidence today, and I welcome the minister's announcements. I have some concerns about whether that £10 million is being made available, but I will return to that later.
It is important to recognise, as the minister did, that children need a safe and secure environment in which to thrive. That is most often found with their parents. It is essential, therefore, that central Government and local government have a strategy to support parents. No one can be unaware of how a child's future can be challenged by a parent's abuse of illegal drugs or alcohol. Duncan McNeil will enlarge on that when he speaks later. The Scottish Government must identify resources to support such families.
I note that the strategy suggests that the forthcoming early years strategy will expand on how to support children in difficult family circumstances, but we must remember that not only young children are in difficulty—older children are just as likely to be in difficulty. In fact, it is often the case that, because of their own development needs, teenagers are caught up in family problems. Can the minister say what resources will be available for them?
Is the member aware of Children 1st's family group conferencing programmes, which deal with the immediate and the wider family in just the circumstances that the member has described?
I am aware of the work of Children 1st and I support it.
In relation to early years, I note that the successful sure start programme does not feature in any of the budget lines that are presently available, and nor does it feature in the concordat. Sure start has helped many parents and has often helped to keep children with their parents. Can the minister explain where it is in the budget? There is little point in having an early years strategy without any resources to fund its elements.
Unfortunately, there are times when it is not possible for children or young people to stay with their parents, as the minister acknowledged, and I welcome the minister's statements regarding the five key principles that underpin the child-centred approach. Having already acknowledged in my speech that the child's needs should be paramount, and that families should be supported to stay together, I welcome the view that the wider family should be the first option when a child cannot stay with their parents. However, that applies only in appropriate and properly assessed cases, and it should never be seen as the cheap option.
It is equally important that placements should provide stability. In the previous session of Parliament, I was pleased to welcome to the Parliament a group of looked-after children from West Lothian. They spoke to MSPs about their experience of being looked after. Many of them had had the experiences of which the minister spoke. They spoke thoughtfully about the fear of waking in a house and wondering where they were; moving from one foster home to another, leaving friends and family behind; building new relationships that might be broken when they moved yet again; and the detrimental effect that all that uncertainty had on their lives, specifically on their education. Placements need to be stable, and for that to happen they need to be thoroughly planned and supported. I will come back to that.
Carers also need non-financial support to provide contact with the family or to help with difficult decisions, including crisis situations. More social workers are needed to provide such support, but that needs additional resources. Members are not reassured on that, as the additional resources cannot be found in the minister's budget figures. When children or young people cannot stay within their wider family circle, well-supported foster carers are needed. In a recent members' business debate, I said that my own local authority of West Lothian was managing to recruit foster carers, but I was told that other local authorities were not so fortunate. I would like to hear how the Scottish Government intends to support local authorities to attract more foster carers. How will the Scottish Government ensure that there is high-quality training and support for all carers, including kinship and foster carers?
I must raise very strong concerns about the financial package that is being put before us to support the strategy—a strategy on which there is much agreement. I welcome the fact that the strategy is jointly signed by the Scottish Government and COSLA and, as a former local councillor, I recognise the role of local authorities in delivering fostering and kinship care services. However, I hope that agreement was not reached at the expense of certainty about the funding that is available for kinship and foster carers.
Adam Ingram's motion refers to
"the provision of equitable and appropriate support for all carers of looked-after children".
The Scottish Government speaks of a minimum national allowance of between £119 and £198 per week for kinship carers as well as foster carers. How can the minister guarantee that? I have a constituent who currently cares for two children who are relatives. They are originally from different authorities, so she receives different allowances. It is intolerable that one child is being discriminated against, but nothing that I have heard today makes me think that that will change.
I am sure that the minister agrees that many children and young people are in informal kinship care situations. How will they be supported? The minister spoke of the role of CABx in his speech in offering financial advice and support to informal carers. What happens to people such as my constituents who are unable to access a CAB easily? The minister has powers to make regulations and set allowances under the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007. He needs to consider his actions—looked-after children should not be made to wait.
In conclusion, we should never forget that looked-after children and young people are among the most vulnerable members of our society. They rely on us to make the right provision for their care. Although there is much to welcome in the strategy, it will consist of just warm words if it is not adequately resourced. Independent figures show that £10 million will be needed to fund allowances for kinship carers. Is the £4 million that has been identified only part of the allocation? Will the Scottish National Party Government identify where the other £6 million will come from? Is it an annual settlement? If the money is not ring fenced in local authorities' budgets, how will the Government ensure that the provision of kinship care allowance does not become a postcode lottery? We have such a lottery at the moment.
What provision is being made for informal kinship carers? Is the Government saying that everyone will need to go through the courts or the children's hearings system for their status to be formalised? I am not sure that those bodies could cope with the workload. I see that the minister is shaking his head, so perhaps that is not the Government's proposal. However, is it saying enough about how it will support informal kinship carers?
If the Government is to maintain the support that it has today, it must answer the Parliament's questions. We need those answers if we are to say that we really have a strategy to support children who are in kinship or foster care.
This time last year, the Scottish Conservatives welcomed the publication of the previous Executive's consultation document that set out a national strategy for fostering and kinship care. We are happy to support the motion this afternoon, given the Government's determination to pursue that strategy's main objectives. The importance of the issue cannot be overestimated, as Mary Mulligan said, nor can the need for cross-party effort to take significant steps to address the need for greater provision and better care for some of the most vulnerable children in Scotland.
In difficult situations where children cannot live with their parents, we fully appreciate that they usually want to live with a family member or friend under kinship care, or, if that is not possible, in a family environment with appropriate foster care, rather than in a residential establishment. In our view, such placements usually give the child the best chance of overcoming the disruption and stress that they had to face in coming to terms with their previous circumstances. There is likely to be more stability and continuity in kinship or foster care, both of which are major factors in developing new confidence and self-esteem.
However, we also recognise that in some cases, perhaps when the child has been severely scarred by an experience at home, or if they require intensive specialist health care or educational support, residential care plays an important role. Whatever route is taken, it is imperative that the child's best interests come first in their educational development and their social and economic integration.
The Scottish Conservatives have advocated a national system of kinship care allowances, a national system of fostering allowances and more careful allocation of placements. We have also expressed concern that the provision of care varies widely throughout the country. Areas of significant shortages and poor practice persist, so it is good to hear that the Government is trying to address them.
We are most concerned by the overall growth in demand for vital services and the question mark over whether the present funding arrangements are adequate. Professor Arthur Midwinter flagged up his concern about the funding shortfall between the provision of grant-aided expenditure and local authorities' spending on core social care for children. The Government has made provision for some extra funding. We welcome the announcement that was made in the past 24 hours. There will be some transfer to local authorities, but the budget's 17.7 per cent reduction in funding for child care services over the next three years raises serious questions, as Mary Mulligan said, about how we can finance all the changes when demand is growing so quickly. More important, Professor Midwinter flagged up the need to tie the overall policy objectives to financial arrangements much more coherently than they are at present. We urge the Government to debate that point fully.
Everyone recognises the importance of a child's first placement. If it works well, it increases the chance that the child will develop confidently and will have the maximum security and permanence during their time in foster or kinship care. Thus, the assessment processes that the young person and the prospective foster or kinship carer undergo before the placement is decided are crucial. The bodies that are responsible for matching children with care arrangements—local authorities and independent fostering agencies—must continually review their procedures and make the area a priority for the deployment of their best qualified and most experienced staff.
The previous Administration made the sensible suggestion that the child should be more involved in the choice of placement. It is good to hear that the Government is also approaching the matter in a child-centred way.
Obviously, once a placement is made, it is essential that the relevant parties have an opportunity to agree the care plan for the child, under the supervision of a lead professional. The child needs to feel entirely confident that all the key people are involved, just as the team needs to feel confident that there are strong links between the child, family members and the members of the professional bodies. That is a matter not only of trust, but of adequate resources and, increasingly these days, adequate funding. The social care sector has had to put up with increasing expectations from Government, therefore Parliament has a duty to clarify the role that it expects kinship and foster care to play and to ensure that carers are fully supported.
It is vital to recognise the growing importance of the kinship role—I am pleased by the Government's announcement in that respect—and the need to remove some of the barriers that currently affect its status. Only 12 of the 32 local authorities pay the main categories of kinship carers the same basic allowance that they pay foster carers. A further 10 local authorities pay a fraction of that allowance—usually only around a third. That seems grossly unfair.
What matters most are the best interests of the child and the achievement of a workable and effective balance between family and state support. That latter issue is never going to be easy, given the conflicting influences that can sometimes cloud the matter in defining where final responsibilities should lie, especially in an age when vulnerable children face increasingly complex problems. We look forward to taking part in cross-party discussions to address the important issues.
"Our vision for all children in Scotland is that
‘in order to become confident individuals, successful learners, effective contributors and responsible citizens, they must be safe, nurtured, healthy, achieving, included, active and respected and responsible'."
Those are the opening words of the former Scottish Government's consultation paper on a national strategy for fostering and kinship care. There can be no disagreement with those aims for every child in Scotland.
Liberal Democrats will offer no disagreement with the Government's motion, but we will not offer unconditional support for the proposed regulation—the minister would not expect anything other than a constructive position from us as the strategy continues. The parties bring different emphases to what can be a sensitive area, but it is right to highlight agreement when the Parliament wants to progress social policy and equality and to increase support for our vulnerable young people. There is an overall consensus.
Some young people are born into, or find themselves in, families that become dysfunctional or dangerous. When that happens, it is not in their best interests to remain with their parents. This is an extremely difficult area in which to develop policy and child protection social workers and those in the voluntary sector who deliver front-line services experience even greater difficulty.
I spent a day with staff who work in this area in my constituency. I was extremely impressed by their commitment and professionalism. I was also struck by their frustration about resources and the stressful environment in which they work. I was impressed by the genuinely supportive multidisciplinary team that is developing in the locality integration area with the police and health staff, and I was acutely aware of the largely thankless nature of the task they carry out in the face of the views of the press and some reactionary politicians. We all think that we are not reactionary, but when there is bad news Parliament and politicians often respond badly. I am not sure why that has generated laughter from Ms Grahame, but it is a fact.
Children are often cared for by members of their family other than their parents, who need recourse to foster carers. I recently hosted a reception for fosterers in the Borders and had the pleasure of speaking to foster parents about their experiences and needs. More than 3,000 foster carers provide care in their homes for some of the most complex and vulnerable children in Scotland. Kinship carers also require additional support, and I am pleased that funding for advice and support for kinship carers is to be made available through Citizens Advice Scotland. However, that funding is for a three-year period. As much as we have heard the new Government say that it will put an end to initiative approaches and ring fencing, we have just that. If there is a defined need to provide support for kinship carers, it should be core support and not a one-off initiative.
We have heard about family group conferencing, which is making a real contribution, but the Government's strategy document states clearly that it happens in only 17 of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland. I know about the work that is being done in Selkirk, which is in my constituency. It should be supported. The strategy goes into depth about its benefits and highlights it as best practice and a non-legal way of determining the best interests of the child—I and the Liberal Democrats support it—but I am surprised that there is nothing more concrete about its development and expansion into the other 15 local authority areas.
One of the main concerns about the Government's budget is that it is in danger of undermining the strategy. Last week, we heard about the difficulties with ring fencing funds for dealing with domestic abuse and domestic violence. Much of that funding has been transferred to local government. When the First Minister was asked about it, he said that it remained a top priority for local government. Of course, that is not detailed anywhere and, regrettably, as we scrutinise the Government's budget on fostering, kinship care, child protection and health support, we see a similar picture. We have not been provided with any clarity and, when there is political pressure, ministers say that it is local government's top priority. The blame can be shifted quite easily.
Does Jeremy Purvis agree that the proof of the pudding is in the eating? There is a joint commitment between local authorities and the Government. We will report on this annually, at local authority level. I will be held as accountable as a local authority for this particular policy; I will not be blaming local authorities as a matter of course.
I appreciate what the minister says; I will take him at his word and I hope that all his fellow ministers will follow suit.
The minister needs to be clearer about funding and the concordat. He said that payments for kinship and foster carers are included in the concordat and that they are funded and included in the block grant for local government. I would be grateful if the minister would publish those budgets with a breakdown of how much each local authority area is expected to receive so that it can provide support for kinship carers. If he does not do that, there will be continuing concern about the sustainability of the funding.
Can the minister state where in the draft regulations is the legal requirement on local authorities to make payments? On my reading of the draft regulations, that requirement does not exist.
The Government has to be more transparent. If it makes press releases about payments before it makes an announcement to Parliament, it must be transparent about the budget documentation, as Robert Brown and Kenneth Macintosh said. That is how Parliament will hold the minister to account.
I am extremely disappointed that the relationship of kinship and foster care with local government is not reflected in health. The majority of looked after young people have complex mental health needs, but there is no mention of that in the strategy or the draft guidelines. I hope that that will be rectified at the end of this process.
I welcome what the minister said, particularly the proposal to introduce a minimum allowance of between £119 and £198 per week for all carers, whether they are approved kinship carers or what we would know as foster carers. The emphasis should be on the word "approved".
I raised this issue in my members' business debate a few months ago: I said that at least 1,700 additional foster families are required because of the patchiness of provision—Mary Mulligan referred to that—and because many kinship carers receive nothing at all. Payments are long overdue and I am sure that they will be welcomed by everyone in the chamber, the organisations, the carers and across all parties.
With the recognition of status will come the need for training, assessment and appraisal. I am sure that we all support that. I also welcome the fact that the minister said that he will look at the manner in which those things are done because, in that members' business debate, I drew attention to the fact that training sometimes takes between six and eight months. Of course we want training and appraisal to be rigorous, but they should not deter good people with good intentions. I am pleased, therefore, that the quid pro quo for the allowances will be training and support. That is necessary.
In the earlier debate, I welcomed the minister's £4 million package for training, advice and information for foster carers and approved kinship carers. He may have answered this question, but where will that money be directed? I refer him to the briefing from Citizens Advice Scotland, which will be expected to do quite a bit on the issue. I took it from the minister's answer that the money will come through normal local authority funding. I will listen to what the minister says but, given that the benefits system may be the main support for foster carers and approved kinship carers, the interaction between allowances and benefits is an issue.
The £4 million, to which Mary Mulligan also referred, was a one-off payment this year to provide foster and kinship carers with training packages, at a cost of £1,000 for each carer. In fact, we have been rather oversubscribed as we have spent £6.2 million. That gives an indication of the demand.
I suggest that more oversubscription may come the minister's way because the Citizens Advice Scotland briefing states:
"It is estimated that as many as 10,000 children have more informal arrangements."
Such people may never have thought of themselves as kinship carers. They may provide such care simply because it involves the family or because they are in extremis and in an urgent situation. The issue is quite complex.
The issue is also complex with regard to reserved and devolved matters. If someone who is on benefits takes in a child and, after approval and training—they are not paid, but receive benefits—gets an allowance as an approved kinship carer, what will happen to their benefits? What is the interaction? Will they be worse off? I do not know the answer to that.
In the final part of my speech, I want to refer to other issues that have been raised. On the business of supporting families—I speak from 12 years' experience as a family practitioner—the welfare of the child is of course at the centre of everything we do in legislation and in policy. If possible, the child should remain within the immediate or extended family, as that is a far better thing.
Evidence suggests that children who stay with their extended family—with granny or granddad or with an uncle or whomsoever—are, at the age of 16, more likely to remain in the same household than those who are put into more formal foster care. Children in more formal foster care are more likely to break loose and to want to be independent, sometimes with the predictably sad consequence that they repeat the cycle of their own childhood. All kinds of benefits can be gained if the child stays within the family, although there are times when that is highly inappropriate and, frankly, the child needs to be removed, either temporarily or permanently.
As Jeremy Purvis mentioned, Children 1st has a family centre in Selkirk. I was very impressed by its family group conferencing, of which I saw a demonstration recently. The child is at the centre of the whole programme. When the child who is finding things difficult at home is asked which people should be involved in discussing what should happen, they sometimes make very strange choices. For example, neighbours might be brought in of whom the rest of the family might not necessarily approve, but the process is consensual. Such conferences take place before any of the professionals are involved. I commend the programme to the minister, if he has not already seen it.
I note that 50 per cent of the funding for that family group conferencing project comes from statutory sources and 50 per cent comes from the voluntary sector. I believe that we need to move towards better funding for such programmes, even if it means only shifting the balance so that it is 60:40. I put that bid into the pot now. We have a great deal of sympathy for that kind of front-line work which, because of its focus on early intervention, might prevent children from going into any kind of foster care.
I welcome the opportunity to participate in today's debate on an issue that is of vital importance to thousands of children and their carers throughout Scotland. I begin by welcoming the Government's strategy on kinship and foster care. The strategy, which has its roots in the work of the previous Labour-led Scottish Executive, will receive cross-party support.
I welcome especially the commitment to give kinship carers financial support in the form of a national allowance and to pay approved kinship carers allowances equal to those that foster carers receive, with the aim of ensuring that all foster and kinship carers of young people receive allowances that are based on the Fostering Network's recommended rate of between £119 and £198 per week.
I am sure that kinship carers throughout Scotland, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet and are in urgent need of extra financial support, will welcome that move strongly, but I am concerned that although independent forecasters have estimated that it will cost £10 million to ensure that allowances that are paid to kinship carers match foster carers' allowances, just £4 million has been allocated to local authorities. That is a significant shortfall. When she winds up, will the Minister for Schools and Skills assure us that the required money will be available?
I am also concerned that the money has not been ring fenced. Mary Mulligan ably put the case for considering ring fencing. If we are to ensure that every kinship carer in Scotland receives the financial support they need, it is vital that the money that is allocated to local authorities to support kinship carers reaches them and delivers benefits. We must end the current postcode lottery of funding, in which some local authorities fund kinship carers but others do not. It is important that we have consistent, nationwide delivery of kinship care support. That can happen only if we are confident that the money will get to carers. I am keen to hear how the minister will ensure that that happens, through the concordat that has been signed with COSLA.
We also need to ensure that the Government's strategy does not undermine people with more informal arrangements. It is estimated that about 1,700 looked-after children are part of a formal kinship care arrangement, but that as many as 10,000 children in Scotland are part of a more informal arrangement. All too often, some kinship carers, especially grandparents, feel that children have been dumped on them, with no support. It is vital that we ensure that all carers, no matter how formal the care arrangement, receive the support and information about their rights and responsibilities that they need, and that friends and family members who provide kinship care are fully involved in developing their care options, plans and solutions.
Like other members, I regard the Government's commitment to fund a one-stop information and advice service for kinship carers, run by CABx, as a welcome move. It is important that we ensure that carers can access confidential, independent advice, and I am a great supporter of CABx. However, I am anxious about how the commitment will be funded. Recently I wrote to Stewart Maxwell about funding for CABx in my area and was told that that was a matter for North Lanarkshire. How can we be confident that the money that has been allocated for the service will be available, to ensure that free, independent and impartial advice is provided?
Although kinship care arrangements work well for many children, there must remain a clear distinction between informal kinship carers and local authority foster carers. I seek assurances from the minister on the safeguards that will be put in place to ensure that kinship carers provide the kind of care that has been assessed as required and that we know that kinship care is bona fide. I accept that many kinship carers do an excellent job, but if they had to undergo the same checks as foster carers, some of them would fail to be approved. That must be recognised in whatever scheme is agreed.
We urgently need more foster carers, but few, if any, local authorities pay the minimum national fostering rate that the Fostering Network recommends. Foster carers are also required to go through a lengthy and difficult recruitment and approval process. Given that the outcomes for young people in stable foster care placements are better than for youngsters accommodated in residential care, will the minister tell us how and when the Government plans to address that issue? I do not have time to go into private fostering, but I would like to know what consideration the Government has given to it.
In the limited time available, it is difficult to raise all the concerns that I am sure would gather cross-party consensus. Ultimately, we need to ensure that, in developing a national strategy for fostering and kinship care, the interests of the most vulnerable children and families in Scotland are paramount—something that I think the Government is attempting to do today.
Before the election on 3 May, I met a group of kinship carers in Possilpark, Maryhill. That group in the north of Glasgow organised an election hustings and invited kinship carers from across Scotland to attend, ask questions and listen. At the hustings, I pledged to campaign to give kinship carers of looked-after children parity of esteem and financial support with foster carers. I returned to the north Glasgow kinship care group after my election and gave the same pledge.
It is with great pride and humility—something that I will return to shortly—that today I can say that the promise looks like it will be fulfilled. It will be fulfilled not just by our new Scottish National Party Government—this is not about party politics—but by local authorities throughout Scotland, whose representative body, COSLA, and 32 leaders have supported the local government concordat, which says that the allowances to kinship carers of looked-after children should be equivalent to those for foster carers.
The concordat is also central to the fostering and kinship care strategy that was launched yesterday. It is a team effort by our nation's Government and local government that will vastly improve the lives of many of our most vulnerable families. As we have heard, the Fostering Network has recommended an allowance of between £119 and £198 per week, and that figure has been accepted by the Government as a minimum level of support. That money can make a dramatic difference to the lives of carers and the young people who are cared for.
I approach the debate with great humility because I have seen the invaluable service that kinship carers provide, not just to children and their relatives, but to society in general, often in financially and emotionally tough circumstances. Many kinship carers struggle to cope, but they do. They cope because they have no choice but to cope. While I was talking to one kinship carer in Possilpark, I asked whether she would benefit from additional respite care. She said that her grandchild was not ready to be left alone with anyone bar her, but that if they could occasionally have just a short break—a day here and a day there—that would be something. At the moment, they cannot afford that. I hope that that kinship care family are closer to being able to have such an activity as part of their lives. It is something that most people would take completely for granted as a normal and happy part of the childhood experience.
Children 1st has welcomed the fostering and kinship care strategy. It has called it a bold new move and, in particular, praised family group conferencing, which is a model that it has championed and excelled at. There is a clear acknowledgement that the best place for any child is a loving and caring home with their parents, and that if that is not possible a kinship carer close at hand is the next best option, with fostering following that.
The most expensive and poorest outcome for children, parents, families and society is when children unnecessarily end up as looked-after children in a residential setting. That is clear in terms of educational attainment, life expectancy, a drastic reduction in quality of life and the likelihood of progressing to the criminal justice system, developing drug and alcohol abuse problems or developing mental health problems.
It not only makes good sense but is socially just to provide kinship carers with financial support similar to that for foster carers. After all, kinship carers know their kids best and are best placed to deal with challenging behaviour and to provide the required emotional support. Moreover, they save the state money and improve the life chances and quality of life of looked-after children.
I hope that the strategy and the parity of esteem, financial support and dignity that it affords the kinship carers of looked-after children will not only improve the life experience of those children and families but prevent more children from unnecessarily entering a residential setting under local authority care.
I commend the motion to the chamber. It is fantastic that the chamber can sometimes get things right and that we can find cross-party support for a measure on which we can all agree.
Given the impact of drugs on our society—and, indeed, the disproportionate effect that they have had on our children—I welcome the minister's announcement, which recognises that too many children in this small country of ours need to be rescued from the dire circumstances of their parents' drugs misuse.
We cannot overestimate the scale of the problem. There is a recognised need to increase the availability of care places through fostering and kinship care. By such means, we can improve these children's life chances. In short, we must be able to meet the increased demand for children's services on all fronts.
I share NCH's concern that if adequate resources are not provided we will be unable to tackle this issue effectively. A national fostering and kinship care strategy is long overdue: the carers in question are the least supported, the least well trained, the least well paid, the least inspected and the most isolated of all child care workers. As a result, we need to understand what new money is being made available. How many carers will benefit? What social work assessment will be required? Who will meet the cost of those assessments? Given the current workload of social workers and child services, is the capacity that other members have mentioned available in the system? As Christine Grahame wondered, will the allowance impact on other benefits that carers receive—particularly as many of them are elderly grandparents who receive, for example, housing benefit? Finally, will the benefit be available in all local authorities?
Such questions need to be answered clearly. If the Government—with the cross-party support that it has secured today—announces this initiative and creates the expectation among carers that they will receive this allowance only for them to find out that they cannot access it locally or that there are other barriers to receiving it, it will be a cruel deception indeed. Worse still, what if children's services, which are currently underfunded, come under additional pressure, resulting in many children having to continue to live with parental drug abuse? The minister knows from our regular correspondence that I feel strongly about this matter. At the moment, these children do not have their needs assessed, never mind met. What if this measure overburdens existing services and means that people who are in greater need slip further down the priority list? Is it simply a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?
We cannot criticise the intent behind the strategy, as it aims to help carers and increase opportunities and real alternatives for young children who live in difficult family circumstances, but we cannot and must not introduce unintended consequences. We must not allow it to be detrimental to other children who face similar circumstances.
I agree that the scale of the drug problem and its impact on families and children is massive. Indeed, previous Administrations and the Government have described tackling the problem as a priority. Christine Grahame is not here, but the priority that it is given was proved only last week when three cabinet secretaries gave evidence to her committee—the Health and Sport Committee—on the impact of drugs on society. Indeed, four cabinet secretaries and, to my knowledge, three ministers, are involved in the area. As a result, I am concerned that the number of ministers who are involved will be a problem rather than a solution. That said, I am confident that ministers agree with the chair of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, Tom Wood, who said during a Health and Sport Committee evidence session:
"We need to invest in young people and families. We need to invest in the unborn and young children who are in an environment in which there are alcohol or drug-dependent people, instead of pouring lots of money into lost causes."—[Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 14 November 2007; c 162.]
Many of us agree with that statement.
A Health and Sport Committee paper stated that the priority should be to give drugs and alcohol budgets to families with children, but figures relating to children and family social work budgets indicate a significant reduction in that area—
The member should wind up.
I will cut short my speech by saying that the rhetoric and the reality must meet.
I need to limit the time for the next two members. They have four minutes each.
I will do my best to cut short my speech.
I welcome what the minister said in his speech, including the announcement of allowances for family carers. We would all agree that such allowances are well overdue. Members have said that thousands of children are looked after by extended families. The measures that have been announced to alleviate the real financial and emotional difficulties—we must remember the emotional difficulties—that people face are welcome.
Members have also said that at present it is almost impossible for kinship carers to find out where and whom they should go to and what they are entitled to. Sometimes that leaves them wading through numerous agencies in the hope that they can reach the correct one and get much-needed help. That is why I welcome the proposal for a specialist information service for all kinship carers that would give much-needed advice. I also welcome the involvement of Citizens Advice Scotland.
When the minister sums up, will she reply to the question that Christine Grahame asked on whether there will be a partnership with local government? Obviously, ministers will be aware, as members are, that the services that local authorities provide vary greatly area by area. Mary Mulligan and other members also made a relevant point about kinship carers' payments being made through local government social work departments. I would like clarification on both those issues.
I raise those two issues because of a number of constituency cases that I have dealt with—I am sure that other members have had similar constituency cases. I know how difficult it is to extrapolate the relevant information. I will give an example of a recent case in which I was involved.
An elderly gran who was the carer for her grandson did not receive any benefits whatsoever—her only income was her old-age pension—but she supported her grandson through thick and thin. She did the best that she could to provide him with a safe and stable environment to the extent that she used part of her pension to pay for after-school care. Eventually, she could not continue to do so, given the money that she had, and she found it almost impossible to get the help that she and her grandson deserved. Fortunately, through contacting various agencies, we were able to help to guarantee funds for after-school care. Those funds are guaranteed only until March 2008, but I hope that what is proposed will help that lady and others who are in the same position.
I thank Glasgow City Council for providing that help through a vulnerable families fund. Without that, the lady's grandson, who had led a chaotic lifestyle in difficult circumstances, would not have help and would not be able to mix with other children. That helps him emotionally and helps his grandmum emotionally, as it gives her much-needed time on her own when she knows that the kid is being looked after.
The woman who I have mentioned is one of thousands of people who care for and nurture children. Often, they rescue those children from a chaotic lifestyle. We must not forget the important point that those people save Governments thousands, if not millions, of pounds by preventing kids from going into care. We should not deny those people the same right as others have.
I thank the Government for these important and welcome measures and I look forward to their introduction.
I, too, welcome the policy, but I want more. I will explain why. The policy is specific—a kinship care allowance is available only to a kinship carer who fulfils the criteria: that the local authority has placed the child or young person with the relative; or that a court order or a children's hearing requires the child or young person to live with that relative.
Kinship carers often step in quickly, which means that children do not come into the local authority's care and are therefore not looked after or placed by the local authority. As a result, such carers do not meet the criteria that are set out in the policy, yet if they did not come forward, the state would have to look after the children. In many of the cases in which I have been involved, local authorities have asked family members or friends to step into the breach without instigating a formal process or taking children into care, so I urge the minister to change the criteria to include children who would be looked after were it not for kinship carers.
I have been contacted by constituents who are kinship carers but who will not benefit from the measures in the strategy. The children for whom they care were placed with them because of difficult and tragic circumstances. My constituents' local authority asked them to take on parental rights and responsibilities for the children and they agreed, after which the local authority put them in touch with a solicitor and paid their legal fees to enable them to seek guardianship through the courts. They did that willingly, having been told that the alternative was that the children would go into care.
My constituents want to give the children a secure and loving home, but they are struggling hard to provide that. They struggle financially because of health problems, and that has an impact on the children. They cannot provide for the children in the way that they wish to. The stress of making ends meet is also taking its toll—so much so that their general practitioner has written to me to express concern.
If the anomaly that I have described is not dealt with, it will discourage family members from stepping in immediately. Family members in similar situations would be better off allowing the children to become looked after before stepping in to become kinship carers. However, that would mean a period of uncertainty for the family and a feeling of rejection and instability for the children when they were least able to cope with that. Social work services would also experience an added burden, as each case would have to be assessed.
When we take into account the fact that the vast number of kinship carers are grandparents who have no income other than pensions, the situation becomes almost unthinkable, as it means that the families who need the allowance most will be debarred from obtaining it. Grandparents are much less likely to risk allowing their grandchildren to become looked after, because they might fear being assessed as not physically fit to take on the caring role. The choice is stark: struggle alone or risk losing the children.
I am not asking the minister to pay every relation who does a spot of baby-sitting or who steps in to cover a short-term illness. However, I ask for family members to be termed kinship carers and to be eligible for the allowance when a child would be taken into care if that family did not step in. A local council would need to oversee that process and it could look for alternatives. If it could not find alternatives, it could deem family members to be kinship carers.
Grandparents who take on care in circumstances involving drug and alcohol abuse do not do so overnight—the process is gradual. At no time does a local authority step in and make them kinship carers; that just happens slowly as parents slide into a circle of abuse.
If the policy is centred on children, the anomaly needs to be addressed. If it is not addressed, the policy will be getting it right not for every child, but only for the chosen few.
I want to begin by warmly welcoming today's debate on the long-awaited national kinship and foster care strategy. Many informed speeches have been made; many members have detailed knowledge of the issue from constituency experience.
The issue of what happens to children and young people could hardly be more central to our society, to its standards and to its pretensions to be seen as caring and compassionate. Adam Ingram was right to refer to the lack of inevitability of the poor outcomes that many young people suffer. I am talking about the children who will end up as NEET—not in education, employment or training—and who will end up homeless, without skills, suffering from mental health problems, or in trouble with the police. Their self-confidence and ambitions are of the lowest, and their potential is not being realised—to the enormous loss of their own life prospects and the contribution that they should be making to our society and our economy.
I have met, as we all have, remarkable young people who have survived, who have resilience, and who, despite the odds, will make their mark positively on the world. As the minister suggested, the challenge for us is to find a way of nurturing that resilience, of fostering ambition and self-confidence, and of widening opportunity for many more young people. Such issues are at the heart of this debate.
Our knowledge of these issues is getting better but all the relevant statistics—on education, on employment, on success in pushing away risk factors and on mental health—remain stubbornly flat. We know more about the importance of personal identity, which is why we changed the structure and basis of adoption law in the previous session of Parliament and why we introduced the idea of permanence orders.
We know, too, that outcomes for children in long-term foster placements tend to be significantly better than those for children in residential care. That is even more true when the comparison is with children who stay with unsuitable parents in home situations where the children are at risk. However, generalisations are dangerous, because every situation and every child is unique. Some young children have had the debilitating experience of being in 18 or 20 foster placements that have broken down, normally because of the scale of the challenges and the negativity that has developed. In its briefing, NCH reminded us that one in three children in foster care in Scotland moves placement more than three times in the first year. The figure in England is one in eight. That statistic offers us a challenge.
I know that the minister is personally very committed to moving forwards effectively on this issue. However, to be frank, I was a little disappointed with the strategy itself. To be sure, there is a good analysis of the issues and there are significant features that will make a difference. Foremost among those features, of course, is the announcement on fostering allowances and on kinship care allowances. I welcome too, as others have done, the pilot project with Citizens Advice Scotland for enhanced advice to kinship carers on their entitlement. I have met the Possilpark group that Bob Doris referred to, and I have met many other grandparents who are in desperate need as a result of assuming responsibility for grandchildren. Rhoda Grant made good points about the criteria for qualification as a kinship carer. We will have to tease out those issues.
Will the minister make it clear whether kinship and fostering allowances will be national and statutory? That was not clear from his speech or from the strategy. If they are to be statutory, regulations will be forthcoming. Will he also make clear the funding assumptions behind the costings—is the figure the £10 million that has been referred to, or some other figure? What exactly is the position? The chamber is entitled to know about such essential points. Will he clarify what COSLA's input to the strategy has been in the three weeks since the concordat was signed? It must have been fairly nominal.
The strategy talks about the centrality of the child's care plan and the planning process. However, the challenge is how to hear the child or young person's voice effectively, and how to put it at the heart of the process. Moreover, how does that relate to other plans and to the day-to-day reality at school? Young people often tell us that they were not listened to, that their needs were a sort of add-on at school and that the planning process did not work properly for them.
The strategy and today's motion signal a reinforcement of the potential of kinship care and the wider family. This is manifestly the correct thing to do—if it is carefully handled. However, I urge caution on the minister as he develops the idea. Situations vary enormously—from many family members who are brilliant, through to family members who have significant issues of their own and whose quality of care, quality of insight into the child's needs and quality of support for the child's development are questionable.
Some children move backwards and forwards between different situations. Where does the balance lie between the parental home, kinship options and outside foster placements? There is a lot to be drawn out as the debate develops. The strategy recognises the need for respite and family support, and both have a part to play.
We need more foster parents. Will there be a national television campaign to build on the successful children's panel recruitment drive model? If so, is there enhanced funding to pay for that, and are there enhanced arrangements to respond to, assess and train the new recruits, which in itself is a big job?
Finally, although the part of the strategy that deals with transition to adulthood is one of the most crucial, it is the least satisfactory. The aim of allowing foster care placements to continue to 18, and beyond that if possible, is absolutely correct, but it appears to be aspirational only. As a former minister, I recognise the phraseology. "Encourage", "work with" and "seek to ensure"—they are not quite what they seem. We could develop that area much more satisfactorily.
Ultimately, much of this is about relationships: it is about people having key adults in their lives and the capacity to develop normal relationships with friends, employers and partners. The national kinship and foster care strategy must be the continuation, not the end, of a process. It must be something that will be supported by other public policy drivers to ensure that we do indeed get it right for every child. I welcome the strategy.
Like Robert Brown, I welcome the debate, and the publication of the strategy, "Getting it right for every child in kinship and foster care". This has been a good debate, and a consensual one, as evidenced by the fact that no amendments to the Government's motion were lodged.
I am sure that the motion will have cross-party support at decision time. That is important, because there should not be party-political divisions on this subject. Indeed, it has been one of those important debates that the Parliament sometimes has that are consensual and which deal with important issues that affect people's lives. Although important, I suspect that such issues get little attention in the media, which is obsessed by much more trivial issues—I will not dwell on that.
Many members have talked about the importance of the family environment. The briefing for the debate from Children 1st makes some important points. It says that it is widely accepted that children who are looked after away from their home experience usually have poorer outcomes than those who are looked after within their wider family. That is what makes the issue of kinship care so important. Many children who are removed from their families and placed with foster carers or in residential care are left to fend for themselves when they get to 16. Some end up in temporary or unsuitable housing; some end up not in education, employment or training; and some end up with addiction problems. Many end up in the justice system, or suffering from mental illness. Others have difficulty caring for their own children.
Placing children in kinship care generally delivers much better outcomes: better health—both physical and mental—and better opportunities in later life. That is not to denigrate in any way the excellent work done by foster carers, who play an important role, but it demonstrates the importance of kinship care. The Government is right to highlight that important issue.
Many members have talked about additional support for kinship carers and, in particular, the financial implications of kinship care. Kinship carers make a major financial sacrifice when they take on children who are not directly their own. There are major costs to be borne in bringing up children. Looking after someone else's children is already a personal sacrifice in terms of time and commitment, never mind the financial package that goes with it. It makes sense for government to step in and be prepared to support kinship carers with finance. That makes sense in the long run because if those children were not being supported in kinship situations, some of them might end up having to go into foster care, which could prove more expensive.
As Elizabeth Smith and other members have said, we have a mixed bag of provision at present. The situation varies throughout local authority areas. Of the 32 local authorities, only 12 pay the main categories of kinship carers the same as they pay foster carers. A further 10 pay an allowance that is a fraction—in most cases a third—of what is being paid to foster carers. The idea of a nationally-set allowance to put matters on a proper footing is therefore welcome.
However, probably the only discordant note in the debate was struck over the need for clarification of that funding. Mary Mulligan, Jeremy Purvis, Duncan McNeil and a number of other members made the case for clarification, and it would be helpful if the minister would clarify where exactly the funding is and whether it will be available nationally. Consistency is needed across our local authorities so that the current patchwork of delivery does not continue, and I welcome the fact that COSLA has agreed to recommend a consistent approach to its members.
There is always a tension. I support the desire for localism and the Government's general approach of removing ring fencing in a number of areas. That is entirely right. For too long, we have run down local government, taking away its importance. However, the local approach creates a tension with national Government's desire to deliver on its targets, so I would be interested to hear how ministers intend to address that issue.
Paragraph 26 of the strategy makes an important point about Government interference. It states that Government should not
"distort existing and future family relationships by any unnecessary interference in … kinship care arrangements".
Many such arrangements already exist naturally. They do not require the Government, local authorities or social workers to set them up. That is the correct arrangement, but it is also important that those families get the right support. That is why the programme to provide kinship carers with additional support and information—which it is proposed that citizens advice bureaux throughout Scotland will deliver—is important.
There is also a need for advocacy. Many young people have difficulty getting their voices heard, which is why the idea of family group conferencing is welcome. Family group conferences put the child at the centre, balance the wider family's interests and, we hope, reduce the need for a series of subsequent meetings, which can be highly disruptive and cause a great deal of upset and concern to the children.
This has been a good debate on an important subject and the strategy is welcome. It may not make tomorrow's front pages, but it is no less important for that.
All speakers have welcomed the kinship and fostering strategy's publication and the debate. I will repeat a point that was made during the passage of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill just over a year ago in the Scottish Parliament and which holds equally true for our discussion of the strategy: we must accurately describe who is being fostered in Scotland today. Many MSPs have debated that subject. They are aware of the needs of looked-after children and the harsh reality of life for some of our most vulnerable families, but the public perception can still paint a rather cosy picture, and a similar dewy-eyed haze surrounds our image of foster carers.
I do not want to quote a lot of statistics, but some are revealing. For example, 68 per cent—in other words, more than two thirds—of looked-after children are aged between five and 15, and half of those are aged between 12 and 15. As Duncan McNeil and other members have highlighted, many of those children have been damaged by poor parenting, often by drug-abusing or alcohol-abusing parents.
Although foster carers' motivation to provide loving and caring home environments for children is in no doubt, they have made it clear that they want to be regarded as part of, or certainly on a par with, the social care workforce. I said that I did not want to quote too many statistics, but it is interesting to note that the average age of foster carers is now over 50.
The kinship and foster care strategy has been a long time in the planning—many people will say too long—and has been welcomed by all sides. It is clear that we need to recruit more foster carers and do more to value those whom we already have. Our hopes and expectations that the strategy will fully address recruitment and retention now rest with the newly established reference group.
Every member who has spoken has mentioned allowances. They are not foster carers' only concern—support, training, recognition and status are all important, as Christine Grahame highlighted—but they are still a worry. The Scottish Government has made a clear decision not to go for a mandatory national system of allowances, but the lack of clarity that surrounds the funding that has been announced is perhaps more worrying. All members hope that the 15 or so local authorities that do not currently provide the recommended national minimum allowances will agree to implement or follow the new national guidance. Market forces and competition between local authorities for foster carers might oblige them to do so. However, until that happens, the current postcode lottery will remain a serious concern to all of us.
Several colleagues, including Mary Mulligan, Karen Whitefield, Jeremy Purvis and Elizabeth Smith, emphasised the apparent difficulty in putting a figure on the funding that has been allocated for putting the recommendations in place. I have no objection to empowering our colleagues in local government through local outcome agreements but, as was mentioned earlier, if those agreements disguise a lack of funding in the first place, they will be merely vehicles for passing difficult decisions, and therefore blame, from the central Government to local government.
The announcement on kinship care is very welcome—we can all share the sentiments that Bob Doris, Sandra White and others expressed. There is no doubt that grandparents and others who look after family members should not be financially disadvantaged compared with foster carers. The strategy's emphasis on good practice, such as family group conferencing as proposed by Children 1st, is also welcome. However, it is only weeks since the First Minister agreed with Wendy Alexander to find £10 million to fund kinship care. From what we can gather, only £4 million has been announced, and it is buried in the local government settlement. Aside from funding, much of the detail concerning kinship care remains unaddressed. Rhoda Grant, Mary Mulligan and Robert Brown in particular emphasised that the implications for informal carers remain far from clear.
I turn now to placements, particularly the lack of a limit on the number of placements. Those of us who served on the Education Committee in the previous session of Parliament will, I am sure, remember evidence that was given by Lynne Isaacs from the Fostering Network. She said that she fostered six children in the run-up to Christmas. She went on to say:
"On 23 December, I had a phone call at 2 am. I was asked whether I could come down to the police station and pick up a four-month-old baby."—[Official Report, Education Committee, 24 May 2006; c 3304.]
That illustrates that the most experienced and reliable foster carers are often expected to cope with, and are unable to refuse, very large numbers of placements. There should always be exceptions, such as sibling groups of three or more, but England, Wales and Northern Ireland have operated with a statutory limit of three for several years, so it is disappointing that the Scottish Government cannot offer our foster carers the same protection. At the very least, should not the Government set a target for implementing such a limit in three or four years?
We are not following the line that has been taken in England, which is to put a flat placement limit on every foster carer or kinship carer. We intend to personalise the system for the individual carer, depending on their home circumstances, how many children there are in their family and so on. Each carer will have their own limit for the number of placements they can accommodate.
I welcome the minister's assurances and have no doubt of his best intentions, but I still worry. There is no doubt that some of our best and most experienced foster carers have suffered what we might term burn-out from being taken advantage of by the system. Without there being legislative recourse in place to protect them, or at least a strategy that has been approved by Parliament, carers could still be taken advantage of by some local authorities.
Another issue that the minister highlighted is one of the most important developments that has affected fostering: the implementation of permanence orders, which were introduced under the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007. The strategy gives due weight to the potentially huge benefit of that policy shift in helping to reduce the number of temporary placements. However, it is a worry that permanence orders are seen as an end in themselves, rather than their being part of the process. Above all, they must not mean an end to the support and services that are available to carers. There is fear that they will not be used.
The strategy goes a long way to giving foster carers status and recognition for the phenomenally difficult job they do. We do not have professional foster carers, although that is perhaps a better way of viewing the service that they provide to our society. The strategy also puts kinship care on an equal footing, and it properly acknowledges and rewards kinship carers for their hugely important role.
There are still many questions about how the strategy will be implemented. I do not believe that the Government can abdicate responsibility or funding for those decisions to local authorities. I hope that the Government recognises that every party and member is committed to getting it right for every child.
I thank members for making this a constructive and helpful debate. We share a common vision and commitment to provide all children with the best possible care. I welcome Robert Brown's endorsement of the kinship and foster care strategy. He might recall that when we were discussing the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill I said that I thought that the fostering strategy should have been part of it and that we should have been considering adoption and fostering together. I am pleased that my colleague Adam Ingram has managed quickly to get the strategy in place and has married the two aspects.
We have agreed absolutely that families should be supported to stay together where that is in the best interests of the child, and our forthcoming early years strategy will be crucial in achieving that. When a child needs to be placed away from his or her home, care within the family circle should be the first option, unless there are clear reasons why that cannot happen.
Most members have recognised the potential value of family group conferencing. We need to have in place processes that draw on the strengths of the wider family if that is in the child's best interests. Family group conferencing seems to be a way of supporting that because it puts children at the heart of questions of care and focuses primarily on their needs.
When we consider whether kinship carers are in a position to look after the children, we will take a light-touch approach to ensuring that children are in the best place for care. Kinship carers will not have to go through all the hoops that foster carers have to go through; we will try to apply as light a touch as possible in that process.
The reference group that we are setting up will be chaired by Anne Black, an eminent child professional who has been listening to our debate in the gallery. The group will take forward specific proposals on effective recruitment and retention of foster carers so that we can increase the pool of carers and ensure that they have good-quality support, and it will recommend an approval process for kinship carers that will, as I said, apply a light touch.
Will the minister deal with my point about the national recruitment campaign? Will there be a television campaign? Will more resource go into supporting volunteers once we have them?
We will leave it to Anne Black and her team to come up with specific proposals on that.
Many members are concerned about the support that is available to kinship carers. A great number of such carers neither want nor need daily involvement from the state. We have all come across the sort of situation that Rhoda Grant described, in which grandparents take on the care of children. A retired social worker to whom I spoke last night welcomed our strategy and payments and said that if they had been in place when she was a social worker, the situation would have been so much better, because she had seen so many families and grandparents put themselves in poverty in order to ensure that children were kept and looked after within the wider family group.
Is the Government intending to make it a legal right for kinship carers to receive financial support? Will not there therefore be a statutory duty on local government to provide it?
That is not going to be a statutory duty on local government; it will be up to local authorities to work with the kinship carers to decide the best way forward for the children in such situations. We said that we want to ensure that support is in place when it is needed, which is why the advice that is to be provided nationally by Citizens Advice Scotland for the programme will be important—
Will the member give way?
I would like to make progress.
It will be important that a helpline is in place for the benefit of people who do not live in close proximity to a Citizens Advice Scotland office.
We should also acknowledge the discretionary financial help that will be provided to many kinship carers across Scotland.
I am sure that the minister will have noted the point that Robert Brown made about continuing care for 16 to 18-year-olds. Will the minister also agree that the present supports that are available for 16-year-olds in their transition from care to the outside world are entirely unsatisfactory and that we ought also to do more in that respect?
I welcome Robin Harper's intervention. The issue that he raises is the reason why our early intervention strategy is important. We need to ensure that the children who fall into the category that he mentioned, and who need more choices and chances, are identified early so that we can help them with that transition. Local authorities, which have a duty of care to such children, can use the resources that are available to them to ensure that those young people do not fall into the category of young people who need more choices and chances. As I said, early intervention is important in that regard.
We are grateful for Parliament's support for our proposals to achieve equity of support for all looked-after children, whether they live with a foster carer or a kinship carer, including the payments of allowances. We are also grateful to COSLA for its support for our prioritisation of the commitment. It is significant that COSLA has agreed with us and is satisfied with the funding, which is the first agreement that has resulted from the concordat.
The minister says that COSLA is pleased with the funding. In this chamber, the First Minister agreed with Wendy Alexander that an additional £10 million should be made available each year for kinship care. Is that being made available? Yes or no?
Rhona Brankin and other members including Mary Mulligan, Karen Whitefield and Ken Macintosh clearly do not get it: £4 million has already been given this year. With regard to the concordat and the settlement with local government—Liz Smith identified the reduction in central Government funding for this matter—the money has been moved to local government. It is new money and it is in the new concordat.
We will not be shifting responsibility solely to local authorities; we will be working with local authorities to ensure that the strategy is in place throughout Scotland. The commitment will, over the coming years, build on the best practice that exists in some local authorities for supporting kinship carers.
We know that there are concerns that more children might be brought into the system. We are not convinced that that is necessarily the case, but we will keep the situation under review. Decisions about whether children need to be looked after are not taken lightly. It might be that, for some who are affected, becoming looked after will be a positive first step towards the development of a planned approach to their care and nurture.
The Government fully recognises the concerns that have been expressed in the debate and by the Fostering Network that foster carers should be paid the TFN's recommended rate of allowance. Over the past two years, the number of authorities that are paying it has increased. I am sure that COSLA will encourage the remaining local authorities—as we will—to consider increasing the rate of allowance as part of their efforts to improve recruitment and retention. We want to ensure that they step up to the plate on that.
The minister should close now.
Ken Macintosh mentioned keeping families together: we totally agree. We want to ensure that foster carers and kinship carers get short-term breaks. That will also help with recruitment and retention. We acknowledge the challenges that are faced by foster and kinship carers; the strategy marks the start of our work. We have a long way to go before we can be satisfied that we have the right range and sufficient numbers of carers in place to meet the range of challenging needs that are presented by vulnerable children, but I hope that all members agree that the strategy is an excellent start.