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In a rather poorly advertised consultation by the Welsh Assembly Government, some 35 foster parents replied to the consultation, either singularly or as a couple. Some interesting statistics show that there are some 1,949 foster parents in Wales, so between 2% to 3.5% of the foster parents in Wales contributed to this consultation on Foster Parents Allowances.
In total, a further 20 agencies contributed to this consultation. Be they Local Authorities or private fostering agencies. It is to their advantage to keep this allowance as low as possible.
While in the original consultation, there are some 1,200 children in care who aren't with foster parents, and some 3,200 who are looked after by Foster Parents. I suggest that WAG should look at how much it cost each of the 22 local authorities to look after each of these 1,200 children?
The Small Fortunes table for the cost of bringing up a child, weekly rates vary from £78 to £98 per week per child depending on age. The monetary value of the allowances each foster parent get for a child varies from £114 to around £150 per week. I very much feel that this is on the conservative side.
My first recommendation would be to establish the costs per child of keeping a child in Local Authority Care. My second recommendations to the consultation is that the minimum amount per child should be £14,000 per year, and again this would be cheap compared to the cost of keeping a child in Local Authority Care.
Visit the following links to the relevant sections of both the Welsh Assembly Government and Neath Port Talbot CBC Websites for further information.
--Gary Lewis
4 comments:
If there are only 1949 foster parents in Wales (some of these being couples) surely it wouldn't have been that much effort and cost to send each one/couple an invitation to participate in the consultation via the Royal Mail.
Did you receive an invitation to participate Gary?
-Richie Northcote
Gary is probably too recent an applicant to be included.
I understand that other of our members who have been fostering for a long time have been consulted.
We should also stress that the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Welsh party.
- Frank Little
Well that explains this one then Frank.
Just to reiterate that this blog is intended to be a facility for local party members to post issues that are personally important to them in a bid to encourage debate from within the local party and the wider community.
All posts, unless explicitly stated, do not reflect Liberal Democrat policy or the policy of The Welsh Liberal Democrats.
-Richie Northcote
Interesting little fact that seems to have escaped most people's notice is the fact that 90% of those residents in Her Magesty's Hotels have been in the care system, surely this shows that good professional foster parents can make a real difference between someone growing up to be a good citizen and a valued member of our society or a long term jail-bird.
Isn't about time we give foster parents the professional respect they deserve by paying them a professional wage????
Gary Lewis
Foster Carer 7+ years
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