The Austin Lafferty Solicitors & Estate Agents Blog

A recent study by Family Rights Group into kinship care in England has found that family and friends carers, who are raising some of the nation’s most vulnerable children, are not receiving sufficient support from local authorities.

When children are unable to live with either of their parents, official guidance stipulates they should be enabled to live with a member of their extended family or social network, provided this is feasible and in the child’s best interests. However, the study found that these kinship carers, caring for an estimated 250,000 children, are being left to fend for themselves and suffer significant levels of hardship.  

Key findings from the study include:

• One in five children (20%) being cared for by a friend or family member had first been placed in unrelated foster care before eventually being moved to a kinship arrangement, creating twice the upheaval and placing unnecessary burdens on an already stretched care system.
• Forty-five per cent of English local authorities had not published a family and friends care policy, more than five months after the government required them to do so.
• Almost half of carers (44%) surveyed said they had received no practical help from their local authority and 95% identified at least one form of support they had needed, but not received - most mentioned several. The great majority – more than 70% - rated the support they had received from their local authority as poor or very poor.

National charity, 4Children, has recently published the results of its research into conflict and violence in families.

The study found that four million families with children experience some sort of conflict within the home, and that 950,000 children are affected by domestic violence, either directly as victims of violence, or indirectly by witnessing violence.

Like many problems that can lead to family breakdown, family conflict and violence can often remain hidden within families for years because of a reluctance to openly admit to the problem and seek help.

4Children is calling on councils to wake-up to the true extent of conflict in families. Separate research by 4Children has revealed that almost half (46%) of local authorities do not have a domestic violence strategy which mentions violence committed by family members. One in ten (11%) don’t have a domestic violence strategy at all.

Anne Longfield OBE, Chief Executive of 4Children, said:

"Domestic violence is familiar ground, but family violence is often hidden from view. Conflict need not turn to violence if families get the help they need. Violence within the family threatens lives, breaks up families and has severe ongoing psychological and physical effects on hundreds of thousands of parents and children every year.

“Family violence is one of the biggest causes of family crisis in the UK, one which puts lives at risk, isolates people, undermines good mental health and costs the taxpayer in excess of £3.1bn per year  in costs to the NHS, the courts and social services. 4Children's Give Me Strength campaign is focused on getting Government and the whole of society to work together to prevent family crisis.

"Even more worryingly, children who face or witness family violence in the home are significantly more likely to commit other crimes in later life. Up to 79% of those identified as the most troubled families in some authorities are living with domestic violence and in some areas three quarters of children on child protection orders are on the registers because of concerns over domestic violence in the family. Unless urgent action is taken, it is clear that this cycle of violence will continue to plague families for generations to come."

The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Agency has revealed the scale of the cost of administering some Child Support Agency (CSA) cases. A typical case requiring a variety of actions to ensure the payment of maintenance can cost up to around £25,000 over 18 years.

Internal management estimates show that when the case involves legal action, the cost to the public purse can jump significantly - by as much as 50%. A ‘difficult’ case in the North West involving years of enforcement against a determinedly resistant parent cost the taxpayer around £40,000.

The wealthy businessman had avoided paying regular child maintenance for his two sons for more than 16 years. During a marathon legal battle the Agency was forced to deploy nearly all of the legal enforcement tools available to it including liability orders, third party debt orders and a charging order imposed on his home. In the end an order for the sale of the property finally compelled him to make a payment of £70,000.

None of the estimated costs in these examples include the added burden of the CSA’s inefficient computer systems, which are due to be replaced over the next few years.

My old friend Professor Leo Martin and his team have created a new family legal business department at the Strathclyde Law School. The idea is to teach the range of legal services and issues that affect families that run businesses. Matters of employment, property owning, retirement and succession planning and lots more are all to be subjects for educating law students (and presumably qualified solicitors too). This is an excellent development, and brings law teaching into a very important area of life and work in Scotland.

As it happens, we at Austin Lafferty Solicitors are already well-trained and qualified in all these areas. We have a substantial clientele of business people with small, medium sized and large businesses, and often there is a family structure that owns and runs the business. Our solicitors are well geared up to advise and represent such clients and their companies at all stages. It is terrific to see a university law school shaping some of its courses to focus on this crucial collection of skills, as this mirrors the way family law firms like ours operate.

Further information on this news available on the BBC News website.

Barnardo’s Scotland is issuing a desperate plea for people to put themselves forward as potential foster carers – particularly for older children.

While there is considerable focus on placing babies and younger children, the charity highlights the needs of older children. There needs to be a range of placements so that the system works for all children and young people.

Barnardo’s Scotland acting director, SallyAnn Kelly, said:

“All children and young people deserve and need a loving home in order to thrive. We urgently need more people to consider becoming foster parents to children over the age of ten.

We know from our experience that older children in care can need extra support. They need carers who can help them overcome emotional and behavioral difficulties, and provide much needed stability.”

There is a general shortage of foster families across Scotland, with at least 1,700 new foster families needing to be found within the next 12 months.

The situation is particularly worrying as the number of children in care who need foster families has continued to increase year on year, but the number of carers coming forward has not matched the need. Figures from the Fostering Network show that the number of children in care in the UK living with foster families at any one time has risen every year since 2005, from 49,700 to over 59,000 in 2011.