Informal Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements

Samantha Kerr made this Freedom of Information request to West Dunbartonshire Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was successful.

Dear West Dunbartonshire Council,

Under FOISA please provide me with the information contained in your records as follows:

1. The Total amount of the tax payers money spent on Informal Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements since 1st April 2014 until present date?

Please break this figure down year on year month on month and week on week.
Please also include the number of types of agreement into your criteria, i.e. Informal Residence order: Informal Guardianship Order: Informal Kinship Carer Agreement?

2. The Total number of children that social work have arranged an Informal Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements since 1st April 2014 until present date?

Please break this figure down year on year month on month and week on week.
Please also include the number of types of agreement into your criteria, i.e. Informal Residence order: Informal Guardianship Order: Informal Kinship Carer Agreement?

3.Please provide me with your full policy and procedure used to ensure that all informal agreements are done so within the confines of the law.

I shall expect your full and frank response within 20 working days or I will be requesting an internal review with a view to getting this request to the Scottish Information Commissioner as quickly as I possibly can.

Yours faithfully,

Samantha Kerr

David MacNaughton, West Dunbartonshire Council

1 Attachment

 
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Dear Sir/Madam
 
This is to acknowledge receipt of your request for information which was
received by West Dunbartonshire Council on 
02/09/2019.                            
 
I have passed it to the relevant department to consider and respond.
 
West Dunbartonshire Council will respond within 20 working days of
receipt, by           
30/09/2019.
 
I also attach a copy of West Dunbartonshire Council current Freedom of
Information charging regime for your information.
 
 
 
 
 
The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended
for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or
there are any problems please notify the originator immediately at -
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Dunbartonshire Council will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or
consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this
message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on.
Unless expressly stated to the contrary, this email and its contents shall
not have any contractually binding effect on West Dunbartonshire Council
or its clients and any writings which are or could form the basis of any
agreement are subject to contract.

References

Visible links
1. http://newintranet.west-dunbarton.gov.uk...

Laura Goodwin, West Dunbartonshire Council

Dear Ms Kerr

 

Thank you for your request for information which was received by West
Dunbartonshire Council on 2 September 2019.  The Council has reviewed your
request, however we require further information.

FOI Request

1. The Total amount of the tax payers money spent on Informal
Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements since 1st April 2014
until present date?

Please break this figure down year on year month on month and week on
week.

Please also include the number of types of agreement into your criteria,
i.e. Informal Residence order: Informal Guardianship Order: Informal
Kinship Carer Agreement?

2. The Total number of children that social work have arranged an Informal
Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements since 1st April 2014
until present date?

Please break this figure down year on year month on month and week on
week.

Please also include the number of types of agreement into your criteria,
i.e. Informal Residence order: Informal Guardianship Order: Informal
Kinship Carer Agreement?

3.Please provide me with your full policy and procedure used to ensure
that all informal agreements are done so within the confines of the law.

 

 

Please can you clarify if the kinship element relates to formal or
informal?

 

Until we receive clarification, West Dunbartonshire Council will be unable
to proceed further with your request. The 20 working days to respond will
commence when we receive your clarification.

If we do not hear from you within one month of the date of this letter we
will assume that you are no longer seeking access to this information and
the Council will take no further action.

 

Kind regards

 

Laura

 

 

Laura Goodwin

Information Assistant

Information Team

Health and Social Care Partnership

 

Tel: 01389 776833

[email address]

 

The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended
for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or
there are any problems please notify the originator immediately at -
[email address] The unauthorised use, disclosure,
copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. West
Dunbartonshire Council will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or
consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this
message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on.
Unless expressly stated to the contrary, this email and its contents shall
not have any contractually binding effect on West Dunbartonshire Council
or its clients and any writings which are or could form the basis of any
agreement are subject to contract.

Dear West Dunbartonshire Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of West Dunbartonshire Council's handling of my FOI request 'Informal Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements'.

The request was for the following
1. Payments for Informal Residence
2. Special Guardian
3. Kinship Care Agreements not informal kinship care but kinship care.
You will find that you can answer No.3 on this request.

Edinburgh City Council did well in their statutory duty in assisting the requester, they asked for clarification: Which can be found here. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Therefore as not every member of the public has a degree especially not a 12 year old, in social policy: Let me help you fulfil your statutory duty under FOiSA:

If you could list the types of care agreements that are arranged by your LAC, for example informal kinship care, formal kinship care agreements including any other agreement which may have another title, as I would not like to think you are playing semantics with me?

If you could provide the payments made since 1st April 2014 until present date broken down year on year month on month .

Additionally if you can provide the number of children that appertain to the month by month payments, giving year on year totals for both payments and number of children?

West Lothian Council were exceptionally helpful to go out off their way to explain how this all works and converges with legislation.

There is no policy in relation to Informal Kinship agreements however there is Scottish
legislation around Kinship Agreements in ‘Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009’
and ‘Children (Scotland) Act 1995’.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/guidan...

Where a child is being cared for informally, and therefore not covered by the regulations, information should be available about areas such as the use of section 22 of the 1995 Act for support in kind or cash in certain circumstances; payments under section 50 of the Children Act 1975 or financial or other supports to assist kinship carers who have some parental rights and responsibilities under section 11 of the 1995 Act. This is not new, but as local authorities develop their services for kinship carers for looked after children, it will be good practice to monitor support to other informal kinship arrangements where there are comparable needs. Financial and other practical support may be vital in sustaining any kinship arrangement which needs to be addressed alongside the particular circumstances to be taken into account in considering the need for a child to be regarded as 'looked after'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Yours faithfully,

Samantha Kerr

Stephen Wight, West Dunbartonshire Council

Good Morning Ms. Kerr,

I am the Freedom of Information Officer for West Dunbartonshire Council and also one of our FOI Review team.

Your request received 25th September 2019 for an internal review of your original FOI request dated Friday 30th August 2019 is not appropriate at this stage in the FOI process under the current Freedom Of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 legislation.

An internal review of a FOI request is considered when no response has been issued to the original request and 20 working days have elapsed or the requester is not satisfied with the contents of the FOI response provided.

In this particular case, we are still within the statutory timescales to respond to you but as yet we have not yet issued a response. The service area handling your FOI request contacted you yesterday requesting clarification on one particular point of your request. They are currently working to provide a full response to your original request and will issue this by the middle of next week at the latest.

I would also note that we do not consider the tone or condescending language used in both of your emails as appropriate or fair and we reserve the right to explore this with the Office of the Scottish Commissioner (OSIC) should it persist.

Regards,

Stephen.

Stephen Wight
Freedom of Information Officer
Regulatory
01389737227
[email address]

show quoted sections

Sean Nealon left an annotation ()

Not surprised to see the local authority draw attention to the tone and condescending language used by Samantha Kerr. This is also evident in many other FOI requests.

Dear Stephen Wight,

Please accept my apologies, this was a cut and paste response, as you will appreciate there are 32 LAC’s and responses are extremely varied.

The tone of this email was not intended for yourselves.

Yours sincerely,

Samantha Kerr

Laura Goodwin, West Dunbartonshire Council

3 Attachments

Dear Ms Kerr,

 

Please find attached response to your Freedom of Information request.

 

Kind regards

 

Laura

 

Laura Goodwin

Information Assistant

Information Team

Health and Social Care Partnership

 

Tel: 01389 776833

[email address]

 

The information contained in this message is confidential and is intended
for the addressee only. If you have received this message in error or
there are any problems please notify the originator immediately at -
[email address] The unauthorised use, disclosure,
copying or alteration of this message is strictly forbidden. West
Dunbartonshire Council will not be liable for direct, special, indirect or
consequential damages arising from alteration of the contents of this
message by a third party or as a result of any virus being passed on.
Unless expressly stated to the contrary, this email and its contents shall
not have any contractually binding effect on West Dunbartonshire Council
or its clients and any writings which are or could form the basis of any
agreement are subject to contract.

Dear Laura Goodwin,

Thank you so much for your response, this is very much appreciated.

I wish you well.

Yours sincerely,

Samantha Kerr