Report to the People
14th April 2008
Promises Must be Delivered
Back
in December, amid much fanfare, the government unveiled a package of measures to
support the selfless grandparents, aunts and uncles who care for the
grandchildren, nieces and nephews whose own parents, often through drug
addiction or alcoholism, can’t look after them.
Under
the support package, these “kinship carers” were to receive a minimum
national allowance of between £119 and £198 per week.
This is much-needed, as many of these carers are retired or living on a
fixed income which doesn’t easily stretch to feeding and clothing another
child.
But,
as I warned when the new scheme was debated in the Scottish Parliament, some
serious questions had to be answered if carers were to receive what they were
being promised.
The
Minister for Children and Early Years, however, told the Chamber that he
expected that, “kinship care allowances will start in April 2008.”
Well,
here we are in April 2008 - so where’s the money? Not going into the pockets of our community’s kinship
carers, anyway.
As
I said at the time, raising people’s expectations like this, only to let them
down later, would be a cruel deception indeed.
I
have therefore written to the Minister, asking what has happened to these
allowances. Is there, as was
predicted, a problem with finding the funds in already stretched budgets?
And when can Inverclyde’s kinship carers expect to be paid?
Given
the sacrifices they make, the least kinship carers are owed is that promises
made to them are honoured.
Back to Current Reports to the People
[ HOME ] [ News ] [ Report to the People ] [ Interact ] [ Links ] [ E-Mail ]
[ Copyright ] [ Directgov ] [ Scottish Parliament ]