The Scandal of Setting up Home Grants - leading charity calls for a fair deal for children leaving care

26 October 2011

National Care Leavers' Week 26th October-1st November 2011

For those that don't know a 'Setting up Home' grant is the money given to a child leaving care to furnish and equip their first flat. 10,000 children aged 16 – 19 leave care each year in England and will have to move into their first unfurnished tenancy typically on or around their 18th birthday – at least 7 years earlier than the 'average' young adult moves out of the parental home. Asked about why setting up home grants were important, Janet Rich, Trustee of grant-making charity The Care Leavers' Foundation said:

"Assume a one bedded flat with no flooring, and everything needing to be found from the bed, to the cooker to the teaspoons. Most of us build up possessions over the years – the 'bottom drawer' our mother keeps for us as we get older; all those items no longer needed that are lovingly kept to one side for the offspring's first home.

"Not only do these save us a great deal of money when we move out, those possessions mean we can take treasured memories and reminders of home into our first property. For children brought up in state care and forced to take on all the responsibilities of adult householders at such a young age loneliness is a big feature and the transition is hard.

"Although material possessions are not everything, being without basic essentials makes starting out at such a young age that bit more difficult and demoralising."

A freedom of information request sent out by leading care publication Children and Young People Now to all 152 councils in England uncovered massive variations in the amount paid to care leavers nationwide. The results confirm fears that some young people are being forced to choose between buying essential items such as a bed or a fridge. A basic Setting up Home grant varied between £750 and £2274. maximum leaving care grant is set at £1,000 in 17 councils and stands between £1,100 and £1,500 in 56 of them.

Research for the report was conducted by care leaver Kimberly Marsh, now a PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant in Criminology.

Kimberly left care almost a decade ago and recalls:

"when I finished my MSc I received an email stating my support had finished. I said I owned nothing to start my life with, e.g a bed! I was told that was not possible – Fortunately I knew my rights, and eventually after lots of pushing I received £500. What's worries me is those care leavers who are not aware of their rights!"

In 2009 The Care Leavers' Foundation published a report indicating that £2,500 was the minimum amount that should be allowed for basic essential items and a new survey published today shows that at today's prices the shopping list of essentials checks out at between £2786.93 and £2,900. Only 24 councils offer a maximum setting up home grant of £2,000 or more to children leaving care.

The Foundation is campaigning for a standard allowance to be set at £3,000 across all councils and would like to see this as a statutory amount.

"we are constantly hearing from care leavers how inequitable the current arrangements are, often with one young person being given a reasonable amount and a college friend in the next borough getting a quarter of that. How are care leavers supposed to make sense of that?

"This is an issue for Government leadership and a statutory minimum allowance. How and when this is made can remain an issue for local policy, but we cannot continue to send children leaving care out into the world with a choice of whether a bed or a cooker is a more important item to have" says Rich.

Harvey Gallagher, CEO of the National Association of Fostering Providers goes a step further "Against a background of cuts to children's services, and with a workforce who seem to have lost the fight it may well require a more radical shift in approach - giving the fostering provider full authority and responsibility for managing the transition - to close the gaps and really make a difference."

At the time of the original report Setting Up: A Place to Call Home in 2009 the MPs expense scandal was in full flow and the House of Commons had just published the so called 'John Lewis' list of allowances for MPs to set up their second homes. MPs could claim up to £2,000 for a 'Suite of Furniture' or £1,000 for a bed.

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