Summary: The Council was not at fault for refusing to pay Ms X its full fostering rate (including additional fees) from the date she became a kinship foster carer. This decision was in line with its policy – which says only fully approved foster carers get the full rate – and was not obviously out of step with case law and government guidance. The Council was, however, at fault for a significant delay in approving
Ms X as a foster carer. Given its policy, this meant she missed out on getting the full rate of fostering payments for several months. The Council has agreed to backdate her additional payments to the date she would have been approved were it not for the delay.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains that the Council failed to pay her its full fostering rate while it assessed her as a kinship foster carer for her daughter’s school friend (Y). She also says it took over a year to assess her – during which time the Council’s policy said she could not get the full rate.
2. Ms X says this matter caused her a financial injustice, and distress. She wants the Council to change its policy, and to pay kinship carers the full fostering rate while they are undergoing assessment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)
6. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I have and have not investigated

7. As Ms X complained to us in June 2025, all matters from before June 2024 are, by the definition in the Local Government Act, late.
8. However:
• It took several months for the Council to complete its fostering assessment.
• It then took Ms X 11 months to complete the Council’s complaints procedure.
• The Council’s decision on a suitable financial remedy for Ms X’s injustice – which forms the main part of my consideration – was well within our 12-month time limit.
9. I have decided that these are good reasons to disregard our usual time limit, and I have not, therefore, excluded any part of Ms X’s complaint from my investigation.

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How I considered this complaint

10. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
11. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law, policy and guidance

Approval of foster carers

12. ‘Kinship care’ (or ‘family and friends care’) is any situation in which a child is being raised in the care of a friend or family member who is not their parent.
13. A child can be placed with a kinship carer (or ‘connected person’) for up to 16 weeks. This temporary approval period can be extended to 24 weeks in certain circumstances. (Regulation 24, The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010)
14. When a council has granted temporary approval to a kinship carer, it must complete a full fostering assessment as soon as practicable, and always within the 16- (or 24-) week statutory timeframe. {Standard 30(14), The Fostering Services National Minimum Standards)
15. A person approved in this manner is in all respects a local authority foster carer, other than that the approval is made on a temporary basis. (Statutory guidance documents: ‘Family and friends care’ (2010; withdrawn October 2024) and ‘Kinship care’ (October 2024))
16. If the temporary approval period expires without full approval of the kinship carer being granted, the council must remove the child from their care. (Statutory guidance documents: ‘Family and friends care’ (2010; withdrawn October 2024) and ‘Kinship care’ (October 2024))

Financial support

17. Kinship carers will be entitled to the same support and services as are available to mainstream foster carers, including financial support. {Standard 30(10), The Fostering Services National Minimum Standards)
18. ‘Allowances’ are designed to cover the cost of looking after a child. They must be paid in line with the government’s national minimum fostering allowance, and must be equally available to all carers, including kinship carers. (The Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Volume 4: Fostering Services)
19. ‘Fees’ are in addition to allowances. They may be paid to reflect expertise, or to reflect the nature of some of the tasks undertaken by foster carers. Where fees are paid by a fostering service, these must be paid to all carers who meet the criteria set by the service, including kinship carers. (The Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations Volume 4: Fostering Services)
20. However, there is no reason why a council cannot set criteria for payment of fostering fees which mainstream carers are much more likely to meet than kinship carers are – as long as kinship carers are not excluded from also seeking to meet the criteria. (R (on the application of X) v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council [2013] EWCA Civ 904)
21. To receive the Council’s fostering fee, carers must complete necessary training and must be fully assessed and approved. All mainstream carers must meet these criteria before children are placed with them. Kinship carers may look after children during the statutory temporary approval period without having met these criteria, but will not be paid the fostering fee until they are fully approved. (The Council’s foster carers’ handbook)
22. In the financial year 2024/25:
• The Council’s fostering allowance (which was paid to all carers, including temporarily approved kinship carers) ranged from £179 to £270 per week, depending on the age of the child.
• The Council’s fostering fee (which was paid only to fully approved carers) was £252 per week. (The Council’s foster carers’ handbook)

What happened

Before Ms X’s complaint

23. Y moved into Ms X’s care in December 2022. He was a school friend of Ms X’s daughter. This was arranged privately; however, the Council’s children’s social care service had concerns about Y’s family, and told Ms X it was not safe for him to return home.
24. In April 2023, Y became a looked-after child. The Council decided he should have been looked after for the whole period he had been living with Ms X. It backdated his looked-after status to December 2022, and backdated Ms X’s fostering allowance as well.
25. The Council gave Ms X temporary approval as a kinship carer and started a fostering assessment. However, an independent fostering agency was not commissioned to do the assessment until July 2023, and then there were additional delays associated with medical checks. Ms X was not fully approved as a foster carer until February 2024.
26. Although the Council had backdated Ms X’s fostering allowance to the date she began caring for Y, it refused to do the same with her fostering fee. She says it referred to its policy that only fully approved carers get the fee.

The Council’s investigation into Ms X’s complaint

27. Ms X complained to the Council in February 2024. She complained about the Council’s refusal to pay fostering fees to temporarily approved kinship carers. She said social workers had suggested her fee would be backdated. She also complained about the delay to her approval as a foster carer.
28. The Council responded under the three-stage Children Act 1989 complaints procedure. This involved an independent investigation (stage 2) and a review by an independent panel (stage 3).
29. The Council upheld much of Ms X’s complaint. It did not change its view on its fostering fee policy. But it accepted that it had significantly delayed her approval as a foster carer. It also accepted that it had failed to share information with her about its policy on fostering payments, despite her asking for this information several times.

The Council’s offers to Ms X

30. For her injustice, the Council offered Ms X:
• An apology.
• A £500 payment to recognise her distress from delays and from a lack of information-sharing.
• A further £500 payment to “acknowledge and demonstrate our appreciation of your support to [Y]”.
31. The Council also set out ways in which it intended to improve its service.

My findings

Fostering payment policy

32. Government guidance says fostering fees should be paid equally to kinship carers and mainstream carers, provided they meet the criteria set by the fostering service (which, in Ms X’s case, is the Council). The Council is in charge of setting its own criteria.
33. The Court of Appeal made clear (in the Tower Hamlets judgment, above), that these criteria do not have to be equally accessible to both kinship and mainstream carers.
34. This means the Council’s policy decision that payment of its fostering fee is dependent on full approval as a foster carer (which has already been granted to mainstream carers before they take on children, but which cannot be achieved by temporary kinship carers until they have been through a fostering assessment) is not obviously wrong.
35. Furthermore, the principle that a carer should undergo a minimum level of assessment and training before qualifying for additional payments is not unreasonable.
36. With this in mind, I have found no fault in the Council’s decision not to backdate Ms X’s fostering fee to the date she began looking after Y.

Delay

37. The Council has accepted that it caused a significant delay in approving Ms X as a foster carer, for which it was at fault.
38. As the independent investigator (at stage 2 of the Children Act complaints procedure) has already fully investigated this matter, and as the Council has already accepted that it was at fault, I do not intend to reinvestigate the complaint. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
39. I have, however, considered whether the Council has offered a suitable remedy for Ms X’s injustice.
40. Given that the Council has accepted that Y should have been considered a looked-after child in December 2022, and has consequently backdated Ms X’s basic fostering allowance, her temporary approval period (even had it been extended to 24 weeks) should have ended in May 2023.
41. Had that been the case – and had the Council conducted its fostering assessment without delay – it is likely that this is also when she would have been fully approved as a foster carer. Certainly, I have seen no reason to suggest that she would have failed the approval process if it had been completed on time.
42. As the Council only pays its fostering fees to fully approved foster carers, this delay in approving Ms X caused her to miss out on a significant number of additional fee payments between May 2023 (when she should have been approved) and February 2024 (when she was approved).
43. As fostering fee payments during this period amounted to £252 per week, the £1k the Council has offered to recognise her injustice is not satisfactory.
44. Our remedies guidance is underpinned by the principle that, when a council has made a mistake, we expect it to try and put the complainant back where they would have been without that mistake.
45. This is not always possible; however, in Ms X’s case, it is. The Council has caused her a clear – and quantifiable – financial injustice.
46. The Council can easily remedy this injustice by backdating Ms X's fostering fee payments to May 2023. It should now do so.

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Action

47. Within four weeks, the Council has agreed to make a payment to Ms X equal to the amount of fostering fee payments she would have received between May 2023 and February 2024 if there had been no delay to her approval as a foster carer.
48. The Council will provide us with evidence it has made this payment.

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Decision

49. The Council was at fault, and this caused Ms X an injustice, which the Council will now take action to address.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman