Member

Amendment 73 relates to the requirement for kinship carers to go through the same foster panel process and standards as the stranger foster carer. This aims to address the current situation where a local authority director of children’s services decides that a kinship carer is the best person to care for the child but knows they will not pass the foster panel requirements. That might be because of age, mild alcohol misuse or a number of other reasons. The DCS judges that the strength of the relationship with the potential kinship carer outweighs those risks and is in the best interests of the child, rather than placing the child with a stranger foster carer. If they proceed with that, it is technically an unregistered placement for the purposes of Ofsted and they are therefore in breach of the law. My amendment would remove such placements, if signed off by the DCS, from being unregistered placements.