Payments for Informal Residence/Special Guardian/Kinship Care Agreements

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

The request was successful.

Dear Renfrewshire 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

FOI, Renfrewshire Council

Dear Sir/Madam,

Freedom of Information Application - Acknowledgement IG191331.

Thank you for your enquiry, received by the Council on 30 August 2019.

I am writing to inform you that your application for information is being dealt with under the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, 2002. Section 10(1) of the Act stipulates that enquiries must be dealt with within twenty working days of receipt. However, we will endeavour to answer your enquiry as soon as possible.

Regards

Renfrewshire Council

Renfrewshire Council Website -http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. Renfrewshire Council may, in accordance with the Telecommunications(Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000, intercept e-mail messages for the purpose of monitoring or keeping a record of communications on the Council's system. If a message contains inappropriate dialogue it will automatically be intercepted by the Council's Internal Audit section who will decide whether or not the e-mail should be onwardly transmitted to the intended recipient(s).

CS Data Policy, Renfrewshire Council

2 Attachments

To: Samantha Kerr

Subject: Response FOI

 

 

Please find attached a response to your recent FOI request. 

 

I trust this is helpful.

 

Review Procedure
If you are dissatisfied with the way in which the Council has dealt with
your request, you are entitled to require the Council to review its
decision.  A copy of the Council’s review procedures is detailed in the
attachment titled Appendix 1.

 

Kind regards

 

 

Policy & Commissioning Team

 

 

 

Renfrewshire Council Website -http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Renfrewshire Council may, in accordance with the Telecommunications(Lawful
Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000,
intercept e-mail messages for the purpose of monitoring or keeping a
record of communications on the Council's system. If a message contains
inappropriate dialogue it will automatically be intercepted by the
Council's Internal Audit section who will decide whether or not the e-mail
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Sean Nealon left an annotation ()

Yet another local authority confirming this is, at best, a poorly researched FOI request as the terms mentioned either don’t exist in Scottish law or don’t involve local authorities at all. This request has been sent identically to every local authority in Scotland so hopefully the user will be good enough to revoke the remainder of the requests so as not to further waste the time of local authority staff.

Dear Renfrewshire Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Renfrewshire Council's handling of my FOI request 'Payments for 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

You will find that you can answer No.3 on this request.

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

Yours faithfully,

Samantha Kerr

FOI, Renfrewshire Council

Dear Samantha Kerr

I acknowledge receipt of your email, received today, 12 September 2019.

I understand that you are unhappy with the way in which the Council has handled your FOI request. Your email has been passed to Allison Black, Managing Solicitor (Data Protection Officer), who is
responsible for conducting internal FOI reviews. I can confirm that a review will be conducted and you will be provided with a decision within the twenty working day statutory timescale.

Yours sincerely

Donna Cunningham
Legal & Democratic Services

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FOI, Renfrewshire Council

Good afternoon Ms Kerr

My name is Mark Conroy and I work in the Information Governance team within Renfrewshire Council. As Donna outlined, Allison Black is currently reviewing how the Council has dealt with your FOI request and will respond with her decision before 10 October.

While Allison is completing her decision, I am getting in touch with you directly because I think it would be helpful to her review to have some further clarity as to the scope of your request.

In each of your questions (1, 2 and 3) you have made a reference to “informal” (i.e. informal residence/special guardian/kinship care agreements).

Firstly, I’d like to clarify what you mean by “informal”. Secondly, I would like to confirm whether you are intending for the “informal” scope to cover your entire request for information i.e. does the “informal” need to relate Informal Residence; Informal Special Guardian; Informal Kinship Care Agreements.

I would be more than happy to speak with you over the telephone if you think it would be more suitable. Please feel free to give me a call on my number - 0141 618 6707.

I'd like to confirm that my email, any follow up correspondence or conversations will not affect your statutory rights under Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. I am acting under the Council’s obligation to provide you with advice and assistance under s.15 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. As a result, you are not under and obligation to respond or provide further clarification in response to this email. In any event, if you would prefer not to respond to this email, Allison Black will respond to you within the statutory timescale with her review decision on how the Council dealt with your original request. Allison is just keen that we are as clear as possible on the scope of the information requested to ensure as thorough a review as possible.

Kind regards

Mark

Mark Conroy | Senior Solicitor
Information Governance

 0141 618 6707

Protecting Personal Information
Everyone has a duty to handle personal information properly and confidentially and taking an extra moment to think about what you’re doing and thinking twice when handling personal information can prevent a security incident.

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Dear FOI,

Thank you so much for asking for clarification as initially I was not sure on the correct terminology to use, and also this has evolved into a separate project.

I am looking for the statistics solely on Kinship care costs from 1st April 2014 until present date presented year on year, month on month?

I would also be grateful if you would provide the correlating number of children each amount refers to year on year and month on month.

If you could provide a copy of your policy and procedure on kinship care (if you have not already) that would be most appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Samantha Kerr

Allison Black, Renfrewshire Council

4 Attachments

Dear Ms Kerr

Please find attached my decision letter and relevant information in
response to your recent requirement for review.

Yours sincerely

Allison Black

Managing Solicitor (DPO)

Legal & Democratic Services

Please note, my email has changed

[1][email address]

LS_AccreditedSpecialist

 

 

Renfrewshire Council Website -http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Renfrewshire Council may, in accordance with the Telecommunications(Lawful
Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000,
intercept e-mail messages for the purpose of monitoring or keeping a
record of communications on the Council's system. If a message contains
inappropriate dialogue it will automatically be intercepted by the
Council's Internal Audit section who will decide whether or not the e-mail
should be onwardly transmitted to the intended recipient(s).

References

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Dear Allison Black,

Thank you for your detailed response, and your assistance to myself the requester.

The information you provided is most helpful, as you have went thoroughly explained this to me.

Many thanks for a very good and thorough internal review.

Yours sincerely,

Samantha Kerr

Allison Black, Renfrewshire Council

I am on annual leave until Tuesday 29th October. If your query is urgent
please contact Nina Hill on [email address]

 

 

Renfrewshire Council Website -http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Renfrewshire Council may, in accordance with the Telecommunications(Lawful
Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000,
intercept e-mail messages for the purpose of monitoring or keeping a
record of communications on the Council's system. If a message contains
inappropriate dialogue it will automatically be intercepted by the
Council's Internal Audit section who will decide whether or not the e-mail
should be onwardly transmitted to the intended recipient(s).

Allison Black, Renfrewshire Council

Dear Ms Kerr,

Thank you for getting in touch. Apologies I am only just responding, but I have been on annual leave until today.

I am pleased to note that my decision letter has been helpful.

Yours sincerely

Allison Black
Managing Solicitor (DPO)
Legal & Democratic Services
Tel: 0141 618 7175
Please note, my email has changed
[email address]

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Dear Allison Black,

Credit where credit is due, dealing with FOiSA requests can be a mine field , and I always feel that good work is mainly never appreciated, but people including myself I will be honest, can be quick to pick up when a service is not to standard, but it should work both ways.

So again thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Samantha Kerr

Clare Cunning, Renfrewshire Council

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Kerr,

I attach a copy of Renfrewshire Council Kinship Care Policy which we
require to send to you, as the final piece of our information, following
your Freedom of Information request in Autumn 2019. This policy was
approved on the 16^th January 2020.

Clare Cunning

Clare Cunning
Social Work Manager- Operations
Children's Services

Renfrewshire Council

Paisley Social Work office
Abbey House
8 Seedhill Road
Paisley
PA1 1JT

Tel: 0141  618 6650
Fax: 0141 618 4637

email: [1][email address]

 

 

 

Renfrewshire Council Website -http://www.renfrewshire.gov.uk

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Renfrewshire Council may, in accordance with the Telecommunications(Lawful
Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000,
intercept e-mail messages for the purpose of monitoring or keeping a
record of communications on the Council's system. If a message contains
inappropriate dialogue it will automatically be intercepted by the
Council's Internal Audit section who will decide whether or not the e-mail
should be onwardly transmitted to the intended recipient(s).

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email%20address]