Public Costings

Dear K Taylor

Thank you for your email.

I acknowledge your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Assuming we hold this information, I will endeavour
to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later than 22nd
March 2010 (20 working days from date of receipt).

I will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/10/0181 in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room B.48, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 694383
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...

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Dear K Taylor

Thank you for your request for information made under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in
sending this information to you. I appreciate we have not complied with
statutory timescales on this occasion.

We have answered your questions in the order they were raised.

1. I would like a complete and comprehensive costs breakdown of holding a
child for 12 months in 'foster-care'.

All figures given below are for current year.

These are the current rates payable to foster carers. There are several
tables as the costs of foster care varies depending on the child*s age and
level of need and hence type of placement.

Payments to Foster Carers

With effect from 1 April 2009, the rates below will be paid:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Age * Years |
| |-------------------------------------------------|
| |Under 2| 2-4 | 5-8 | 9-10 |11-15 |16-17 | 18+ |
|----------------------+-------+------+------+------+------+------+------|
|Maintenance Element | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|All foster placements | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ |
| | | | | | | | |
|(per week) |126.00 |129.22|144.27|144.27|163.66|192.71|192.71|
|----------------------+---------------------+---------------------------|
|Reward Element | | |
| | | |
|Non-related placements| £ | £ |
|only (per week) | | |
| | 102.13 | 194.74 |
| | | |
| | | |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Note Related placements receive only maintenance element.

Non-related placements receive both reward and maintenance
elements.

Payments For Skills (P4S) Payments to Foster Carers

Payments to reward foster carers for their level of skills.

With effect from 1 April 2009, the rates below will apply:

Level 2 £20.00

Level 3 £50.00

Payments to Specialist Foster Carers

With effect from 1 April 2009, the rates below will apply:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Age * Years |
| |-----------------------------|
| | 0 * 8 | 9 * 16 |
|------------------------------------------+--------------+--------------|
| | £ | £ |
| | | |
|Single Placement Supplements | | |
| | | |
|Reward (per week) | 204.26 | 389.48 |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|Plus maintenance according to age | | |
|------------------------------------------+--------------+--------------|
| | | |
| | | |
|Treatment Fostering (per week) | 744.87 | 744.87 |
| | | |
|Therapeutic Fostering (per week) | 582.19 | 582.19 |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Note Foster Carers who are not related to the Child in Placement:

All foster carers will receive one consolidated weekly payment which will
incorporate all the fixed allowances, including maintenance/personal
allowance, etc for the child.

If a child has very specific needs which may require additional money,
agreement must be sought from the CFE Director Children Services.

Payments to Relative / Friend Carers

LAC - For carers approved as a relative foster carer for a looked after
child, the rates below will apply:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Age * Years |
| |-------------------------------------------------|
| |Under 2| 2-4 | 5-8 | 9-10 |11-15 |16-17 | 18+ |
|----------------------+-------+------+------+------+------+------+------|
|Maintenance Element | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ |
| | | | | | | | |
|Related foster | | | | | | | |
|placements (per week) | | | | | | | |
| |126.00 |129.22|144.27|144.27|163.66|192.71|192.71|
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

For a Residence Order Non LAC the rates below will apply less child
benefit:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | Age * Years |
| |-------------------------------------------------|
| |Under 2| 2-4 | 5-8 | 9-10 |11-15 |16-17 | 18+ |
|----------------------+-------+------+------+------+------+------+------|
| | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|Non-Related (per week)|228.13 |231.35|246.40|339.01|358.40|387.45|387.45|
|----------------------+-------+------+------+------+------+------+------|
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|Related |126.00 |129.22|144.27|144.27|163.66|192.71|192.71|
| | | | | | | | |
|(per week) | | | | | | | |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Note Residence Order Allowances should not exceed the equivalent of the
fostering payment level less child benefit.

The average weekly cost of a foster care placement is £346, plus average
additional costs such as transport of £31.

The average weekly cost of a standard residential placement is £3,005,
and for disabled placement is £3,461.

I ask you to include all relevant costings for primary care; once entered
into the 'Care-System', often due to the trauma of being removed from
parents and not being placed with relatives/friends within the family but
being placed with any number of strangers;

therefore I ask you to consider additional 'special needs' that children
may develop and include relevant and accurate financial breakdown.

This refers to services that are provided by the Health Service Child and
Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). We do not hold information on
this.

I would like financial details of fostering, support-services, transport,
administration and full legal costs, to include every service and resource
required to hold a child in State Care.

The total legal services budget for care proceedings is £3.1m. Other
budgets are not held in sufficient details to be able us to identify
separate costs relating to children in care.

2. I would like a complete cost breakdown for providing services to
natural parents and relatives accordingly to the above towards efforts to
prevent their children being pushed or placed further with strangers for
State Care and/or adoption.

Include full costing of services on offer to adopters.

The County adoption support team budget is £3.0 million. KCC also has a
contract with NCH for the Kent Independent Support for Kinship Adoption
(KISKA) at value of approximately £527,000.

3. I would like a complete cost breakdown for the provision of grief
counselling, adult services, primary healthcare, pre- and post-litigation
funding, and such services as you would normally provide for persons who
have suffered catastrophic loss.

This question relates to services provided by NHS and Kent Adult Social
Services. For Adult Mental Health we fund the following services for
bereavement counselling:

For 2010/11
Maidstone Cruse - £5465

In 2009/10
Maidstone Cruse - £5465
Ashford & District Cruse Bereavement - £873.30
Dover & Folkestone Cruse Bereavement - £2239.63
Swale Cruse Bereavement Care - £1929.05

The 4 organisations shown as funded in 2009/10 have been funded by Adult
Mental Health for at least 10 years but we decided to discontinue the East
Kent ones for April 2010 onwards, so only the Maidstone one remains

The amounts paid have been uplifted by inflation according to KCC's uplift
procedures in the past - but for 2010/11 there is no uplift, so payment to
Maidstone Cruse remains the same as 2009/10.

4. This request is for comprehensive breakdown of revenue used to fund
each of these activities, where the revenue comes from, be it local
taxation, corporate coverage, government donations, and so forth.

See answer to question 3.

5. Please state whether you consider that the service offered to
parents/relatives prior to Care-proceedings would be classed as adequate.

This is asking for an opinion/comment and is outside the scope of FOIA.

6. I ask you to confirm if Care provided would be deemed suitable for your
own children or grandchildren.

This is asking for an opinion/comment and is outside the scope of FOIA.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/your_council/have...
on our website. Please quote reference FOI/10/0181

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner*s website
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Regards

Michelle Hunt
Access to Information Co-ordinator
Communication & Information Governance
Children, Families & Education Directorate
Kent County Council
Room 2.35, Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ
External: 01622 696692
Internal: 7000 6692
Email: [email address]

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