Fosters carers may not have to pay council tax in Plymouth

Exemption plan part of review to get more in-house carers

Councillors in Plymouth want to make their in-house foster carers exempt from council tax.

It will be part of a review into local authority foster care as the city council redoubles its efforts to attract more people into the service.

A motion to full council was brought by the opposition Conservative group asking members to recognise the “valuable contribution foster carers make to the city” and “the positive family support they offer to our looked after children” by resolving to provide 100 per cent council tax exemption to those who provide more than 182 days of foster care in the preceding year.

Proposer Cllr Charlotte Carlyle (Con, Compton), shadow cabinet member for education, skills and children and young people, said: “Our foster carers, like all the foster carers across the city whether they be with an agency or with Plymouth City Council do an excellent job. They are, for our children, stability and give them a solid base in quite often turbulent times for them but we know the cost of living crisis as hit them just as hard as it has everyone else.”

She said the issue was highlighted when a young person expressed concern about whether their foster carer would be able to afford to look after them properly because of the cost of living crisis.

“Our children and young people have a lot to deal with in the first place, that is not something that they should have to take into consideration,” she said.

Cllr Carlyle said offering council tax exemption was one way the authority could help.

Deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for children’s social care Cllr Jemima Laing (Lab, Stoke) said this issue had been discussed since the Labour administration took control of the council from the Conservatives in May.

“We are looking at this as part of a wholescale review of the kind of package we offer to our in-house foster carers. We have excellent foster carers looking after our children, whether they are in house or working with independent fostering agencies, and we really value what they do to support our children and young people, but it is a simple fact that placing our children with independent foster carers costs the council a great deal more.

She said with the extraordinary budgetary pressures facing councils, they needed to redouble efforts to make Foster for Plymouth, the council’s fostering service, the first choice for potential foster carers.

“Growing our in-house foster provision is the nut we really need to crack and I make no apology for that,” she said. “I am absolutely determined that we work something out that makes being a Plymouth City Council foster carer preferable to anything else out there. We have to do it for a whole host of reasons.”

She proposed that the motion be deferred to the education and children’s social care overview and scrutiny committee.

Cabinet member for finance Cllr Mark Lowry (Lab, Southway) said deferring it was the best way forward as there were some fosters carers outside the council tax area, some were eligible for other benefits, and foster carers working independently might mount a legal challenge. The cost to the council if the motion went ahead would be £200,000.

Cllr Rebecca Smith (Con, Plymstock, Radford) said the way the council ran things at the moment meant children were being switched from agency carers back to local authority carers to save money.

“Every time we move them, we are affecting the lives of those young people who have already had a lot of upheaval. We need to find solutions to ensure those movements from foster carer to foster carer are minimised as much as possible.”

Cllr Laing refuted it was about saving money but doing “what is best for the child”.

Cllr Ian Darcy (Con, Plympton St Mary) said the difficulty in recruiting social carers and foster carers in Plymouth had been a problem for years, but he welcomed any new incentives.

“I recognise the implication on our budget from offering council tax exemption, but there are significant savings if we can get more of our own foster carers. I welcome it going to scrutiny [committee} but this must not be kicked into the long grass because it has been a problem that has been around a long time.”