Fostering Fees And Allowances - Update 31/07/2018

The consultation period for the review of the Foster Carer Fees and Allowances Model began on the 25th of July with information being shared with all carers and staff across the county.  

The first of the consultation events was also held in Exeter with carers attending throughout the day to understand more about the proposed new model and share their thoughts.

Our desire throughout this consultation process is to listen to your feedback and respond. One of the issues raised by some carers was that it would be useful to see in detail the way in which the assessment could be made to determine whether a young persons’ needs are Enhanced or Enhanced Plus and the potential household financial implication. In response we are happy to share with you the findings of the individual ‘stress testing’ completed earlier in this process. We examined a ‘snap shot’ of all placements on the 31st of March 2018 to determine which children had support needs which could be assessed as enhanced or enhanced plus.

We are happy to share with you the outcome of this exercise for your household. However, this needs to be viewed with caution as it will provide no more than a broad understanding of the possible implication of the model. It is a retrospective ‘snap shot’ and we know that we expect the assessment to change in response to carer feedback during the consultation.

We are preparing this information and will make it available as soon as we can. We trust that this swift response to carers request is a further indication of our desire to work collaboratively with you to create a model that works.