Care Leaver Payment: consultation analysis

Footnotes

1 Note that this payment was previously referred to as the ‘Care Experience Grant’ in the SNP Manifesto 2021 (page 28), the Programme for Government 2021/22 (page 10) and the Programme for Government 2022/23 (page 15).

2 The Youth Justice Voices project is a joint collaboration between the Children’s and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) and the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum (STAF). It was set up in April 2019 to amplify the voices of young people aged 16–25 with experience of the care and justice systems. The project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and The Promise Partnership Good Childhood Fund.

3 Inside Out is a steering group for care experienced boys and young men in HMPYOI in collaboration with Barnardo’s. The project focuses on driving change and promoting rights-based issues.

4 Youth Just Us is the steering group for the Youth Justice Voices project.

5 See Scottish Government (2016) Guidance on Part 10 (Aftercare) of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, paragraphs 37 and 38. A ‘care leaver’ is a young person who meets the descriptions set out in section 29 and section 30 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (as amended by section 66 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014). From 1 April 2015 a care leaver is a young person who ceased to be looked after on, or at any time after, their sixteenth birthday. This replaces the previous definition of ‘a young person who ceased to be looked after on or after the minimum school leaving age’.

6 Different organisations define ‘care experienced’ in slightly different ways. The Care Inspectorate defines it as ‘a child, young person or adult who is, or who has been, looked after [by the local authority] at some point in their childhood’. The Scottish Framework for Fair Access defines it as referring to ‘anyone who has been or is currently in care/looked after background at any stage of their life, no matter the length of time. This includes adopted children who were previously looked after. This care may have been provided in one of many different settings, such as in residential care/ foster care/ kinship care or being looked after at home with a supervision requirement’.

7 As part of the Keeping the Promise Implementation Plan (Chapter 7), the Scottish Government has made a commitment to develop a universal and inclusive definition of ‘care experience’.

8 It was noted by this respondent that Part 13 of the kinship care guidance (page 13, paragraph 37) states that young people in informal kinship care where a kinship care order is in place, are not looked after children, and that therefore the legislation and regulations governing the care of looked after children do not apply to this group. It was suggested that including these children within the scope of eligibility for the Care Leaver Payment was therefore contradictory to the kinship care guidance and would give rise to inequities and anomalies. The respondent also noted that the inclusion of this group would mean that the eligibility criteria for the Care Leaver Payment would not match the eligibility criteria for other financial support packages, and this could be a further source of confusion.

9 It should be noted that these suggestions were not always offered in a definitive manner (e.g. ‘this group must be eligible for the payment’), but rather were put forward as suggestions for consideration (e.g. ‘consideration should be given to extending eligibility to this group’) or questions (e.g. ‘should this group not also be eligible for the payment?’)

10 Note that one third sector organisation said young people with a kinship care order are currently excluded from Continuing Care and gave this as a reason for agreeing with the criteria proposed in the consultation paper.

11 The eight wellbeing indicators are: Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible and Included. These are often referred to using the acronym SHARNARRI.

12 Section 29 of the 1995 Act outlines the type of support to be provided to care leavers eligible for Aftercare. This may include assistance ‘in kind or in cash’.

13 The Care Experienced Flexible Fund for care leavers was launched by Stirling Council in 2022.

14 Note that one organisation said it was not possible to comment on what support would be needed without further specific details of the application process.

15 Note that it was suggested that a useful feature for the application process would be the ability for an applicant to save their work as they went along, and to return to it at a later date.