Decision details

          The Board considered a report of the Executive Director - Children’s Services, which advised on an uplift in payments to fostering and Special Guardianship Order (SGO) households in Halton to support foster carers/SGO carers/Staying Put who were providing care and support to the children of Halton who are placed with these carers. The request is for:

·       for all foster carers, Staying Put and SGO carers to be provided with an uplift of 2% for the 2024-2025 financial year. Payments would be backdated to April 2024 to cover the costs of raising an extra child in their home;

·       for the year 2025/26 for all foster carers, staying put carers and SGO carers to be uplifted by 2.5% for the financial year;

·       all foster carers, SGO carers and Staying Put carers would receive an uplift of 2.5% for 26/27;

·       as part of the Council offer to recruit and maintain foster carers locally the Council have paid Council Tax for their carers once a child had been placed in their care. It was requested that this arrangement continued and approved Halton Foster Carers would continue to receive 100% council tax exemption at a cost of approximately £2000 per household per year. Based on 100 households this would require £200,000 per year additional funding. The current allowance was being reviewed to include stipulations on households only receiving tax relief once approved and children were in placement but where households were not taking children then council tax relief would cease; and

·       the current monthly mobile phone allowance would be maintained and payable to all approved Halton Fostering households. This was currently set at £15 per month.   

          RESOLVED: That

1)    all Halton Council approved foster carers, staying put carers and SGO carers are provided with an uplift of 2% to be backdated to 1 April 2024 until 31 March 2025 and for the 2.5% uplift to be applied from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026; and

2)    approval is given to a further increase of 2.5% next year 2026/27.