Rochdale Council loses High Court challenge over special guardian payments
Joe Lepper
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Rochdale Council has been criticised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman over its treatment of special guardians and must now look into backdating increases in their allowance as far back as 2013.
The recommendation to backdate allowances for grandparents, who are granted special guardianship orders (SGOs) to look after their grandchildren, was made in a critical report by the ombudsman in May this year.
The council challenged the ombudsman’s findings in the High Court.
The challenge failed this week, with the High Court agreeing with the ombudsman that the local authority needed to look again at its policy of paying special guardians.
The case involved grandparents who had been granted an SGO to look after their grandchild and have day-to-day responsibility for their care.
They said their allowance should be increased in line with payments received by foster carers, according to statutory guidance and based on previous court cases.
They were also not given increases in their allowance based on the age of the child, despite being told they would receive this.
The ombudsman found that the council’s policy on special guardian allowances was not agreed at a formal committee and was not in line with statutory guidance, case law or the council’s own legal advice.
The High Court agreed with the ombudsman that fostering allowances should be used as the basis for payments to special guardians and dismissed the council’s challenge.
The council has been ordered to pay the ombudsman’s legal costs and consider the watchdog’s recommendations.
This includes backdating all special guardianship allowance payments for grandparents to November 2013, when the ombudsman published guidance in a "focus report" on their payments.
“The High Court has endorsed our decision and clearly rejected the council’s challenge,” said ombudsman Michael King.
“Special guardianship orders offer invaluable stability to children who, for whatever reason, cannot live with their birth parents.
“We issued focus reports in 2013 and again in 2018 offering advice and guidance to councils on how they should support special guardians, after finding a number of families had not been treated fairly.
“Given the background to this case, we sincerely hope elected members will now honourably accept our recommendations to correct the council’s error and protect other families in the future.”
Rochdale Council’s director of children’s services Gail Hopper has admitted that the council made a “payment error” regarding special guardians and that it is to look at the value of the compensation on offer next year.
"Our special guardians do such an important job looking after young people in difficult circumstances, keeping families together, and we appreciate all they do,” said Hopper.
“We are very sorry for this payment error and the inconvenience this has caused. In line with the recommendations of the report, we will be reviewing the payments that any families who are in receipt of special guardianship payments received and putting right any errors that have occurred by making appropriate compensatory payments.
“We will also be consulting in the new year on a new policy around our SGO payments.”
