Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I am not sure who else wants to come in. Should teachers be informed of children’s status? Should “YC” or “KC” appear next to someone’s name in the register, to indicate that they are a young carer or are in kinship care? That would flag it up to teachers—especially in secondary school settings, where young people move around and see a different teacher in each class—so that they would understand and could sometimes cut them some slack. That point is always put to me when I speak to young carers, so I wanted to include that potential model in my question.

That leads on to the point that I wanted to make. I am sure that every MSP has dealt with cases involving informal kinship care. Often, it is grandparents who informally take on the kinship care role, and in many cases they have retired. To go back to Linda Richards’s point, such people are often worried about engaging with social work and what that might mean. To be honest, they can be worried about how they might be judged.

For a future model, should informal kinship carers benefit from a recommended allowance? Given your experience, what would that look like, and how could it work for such families, who are often nervous about engaging with local authorities on the issues?

Thank you for that very powerful testimony, Micheleine.

Does anyone else want to come in on that point?

Thank you for that—

Good morning. Thank you for joining us.

I want to follow up on Marie McNair’s questions. Why has progress not been made on the issue? There is frustration about that in Parliament. The Education and Skills Committee made numerous recommendations on the subject, but those do not seem to have been implemented. Is it the case that a recommended allowance has not been implemented in Scotland purely because of the financial situation in which councils have found themselves?

For example, I was looking at COSLA’s submission to the committee, which states that, from the start of the work on a national allowance, delivery

“would not be possible within the current level of ... funding”,

and that the Scottish Government, having cut council funding, would have to fully fund the allowance in order for it to be possible.

I will bring Laura Caven in to comment on why we have not seen that standard being delivered, because it is now years since it was expected.

We touched on the Promise when speaking to the previous panel of witnesses. Many MSPs are feeling frustrated that the Promise is not being delivered. In your professional experience, where are the problems in delivering that? From most of the submissions that we have had, it seems that local authorities are being tasked with delivering the Promise but are not being given the resources to do that.

I start with Micheleine Kane and then I will see who else wants to come in.

Thank you. If there is information about what additional payments councils provide, that would be very helpful for the committee. Clearly, there is a postcode lottery of support across the country, so it would be helpful to see where that applies.

Since nobody else wants to answer that question, I move to my second question, which is also on kinship carers who are in informal kinship care arrangements and so are not eligible for support. Maybe this is a good question for Linda Richards. How are such individuals supported and what arrangements do you have in place in Perth and Kinross Council?

Thank you for that. I hope that the committee hears what you have said, because I think that everyone in the Parliament is disappointed by the lack of progress that has been made. That has to change.

I do not know whether any other witness wants to come in.

I have a question that you might want to follow up in writing. I want to ask about a new model around information and access to services for kinship carers, which goes beyond what we have been talking about in terms of payments. I think that we were all impressed with what we heard this morning about Perth and Kinross Council, given the urban and rural nature of that council area. Is there a best practice model for providing a whole package including, for example, peer support for kinship carers and access to and information about local third sector organisations? You might want to write to us about that, as I said.

In West Lothian, in my region, there are a lot of good third sector organisations that link with and help people without waiting for a referral pathway to be put in place. Are there any examples of that additional support for when people become kinship carers, or of models being developed around that?