Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether welfare benefits or tax credits, including disability benefits that a kinship carer receives for themselves or the child, will be impacted if they receive financial support through the Kinship Allowance Pilot.

The kinship allowance pilot will provide financial support to eligible kinship carers with a Special Guardianship Order or a ‘lives with’ Child Arrangement Order where the child would have otherwise been in care. These carers will receive a weekly non-means tested allowance paid at the same rate as the national minimum fostering allowance, if they reside in the pilot local authorities.

The requirements under chapter 2 of the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005 (2005 Regulations) will not apply to the arrangements made under this pilot. Special Guardians receiving financial support under 2005 Regulations are barred from receiving this pilot's allowance to avoid the risk of double public-funding. We believe this will have minimal effect on financial support arrangements under the Special Guardianship Regulations because this pilot is only being run in a select few local authorities and for a specific period of time, so some Special Guardians will continue to prefer receiving financial support under the 2005 Regulations.

Further details of the pilot, including how payments made through the pilot will interact with social security benefits, will be made available when the pilot goes live.

The pilot will be independently evaluated to find out how best to deliver consistent financial support for kinship families. Decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation.