Call for stronger regulation of kinship strategy

New research from national charity Family Rights Group has found that a third of local authorities are failing in their obligation to set out what support they will provide to kinship families, in a published local kinship care policy. Over half have also failed to name a senior manager with responsibility for its implementation.

The charity is now calling on the government to regulate, to strengthen these requirements on local authorities. We are also calling for this to be backed up with a national kinship financial allowance, improved employment rights for kinship carers and funding so children in kinship care who need therapeutic support can access it.

• Legal Update: National Kinship Care Strategy

In 2011, the government published Family and Friends Care statutory guidance, which local authorities should follow. Family Rights Group was key in influencing its creation. One of its key tenets is that local authorities must publish a local family and friends care policy, setting out the council’s approach to promoting and supporting the needs of children in kinship care. They must have a senior member of staff responsible for implementing it, among other obligations.

Family Rights Group has carried out a new audit of local authority family and friends care policies across England. The findings make for concerning reading.

• 64 per cent of local authorities have a publicly available policy, updated in the last five years. Over a third do not.

• 45 per cent have a manager identified for being responsible for the policy. Over half do not.

• eight in 10 did not engage with local families in developing their policy.

• Only a quarter of policies signpost to local support services.

• Many use a generic template not tailored to their locality and the needs of children and carers. It is not clear who is eligible for local authority support or how to apply.

The status quo is failing and families are being treated unfairly as a result. Calls to our specialist national advice line regularly reveal poor, inconsistent and unfair practice. Local Government Ombudsman investigations reinforce that picture. For example, the recent decision on the unfair calculation of special guardianship payments in Devon.

In December 2023, the government published a national kinship care strategy and committed to update the Family and Friends Care statutory guidance. We are concerned that unless the guidance is given more teeth, for example via regulations, children and families will not see meaningful change in their area.

We also recommend that the local policy requirement could be reframed as a ‘local offer’ for kinship children and their carers. Learning from the local offers required for care leavers and disabled children, a local offer would be more outward facing and less procedural in focus than a local policy. It would be clearer for children and families to understand and engage with. More than a mere gesture, it could reset and refocus local authority thinking about how to meet the needs of different kinship care families. This would align with the new inclusive definition of kinship care, which Family Rights Group proposed and had a central role in developing.

We have presented government with proposals for how a stronger requirement for a local policy or local offer could be implemented. This includes putting it on a firmer footing than in statutory guidance alone, for example by regulating. This could be done ahead of the general election, without requiring new primary legislation.

Kinship care is firmly on the political agenda. Parliament will debate the new kinship strategy this week. The cross-party All Party Parliamentary Group on Kinship, serviced by Family Rights Group, has helped to raise the profile of kinship care amongst parliamentarians.

But children only get one childhood and that time is precious. We must do better by kinship families now. Regulating for a local offer would be way to helping achieve that.

• Cathy Ashley is chief executive of the Family Rights Group