Foster carers in Staffordshire are to be paid according to skills and experience under a new system agreed by councillors.

Members of Staffordshire County Council Social Services Scrutiny Committee has agreed the overhaul to the payment system which is being recommended by the National Foster Care Association.

The changes mean there will be four different levels of pay scale with accredited qualifications for each grade.

Previously carers were paid according to the type of child they had assigned to them.

Social services assistant director Richard Jarrett said the changes to the system were aimed at encouraging more people to become foster carers and maintaining people already involved.

He said the county was currently caring for 550 children, 370 of whom were in foster care.

Foster carers at level one are to be paid an allowance of between £61 and £123 per week depending on the age of the child.

At level two they will be paid a weekly fee of £25 plus an allowance of between £86 and £148.

At level three the fee is £75 with allowances of between £136 and £198 and at level four the fee is £180 with allowances of between £256 and £303.

Mr Jarrett added that if the system encouraged more people into fostering then it would pay for itself because it avoided the expense of residential care.

He said: "Foster care, even at level four, is much cheaper than residential care."

Committee chairman Denis Heptonstall asked whether the system would still include the requirement from foster carers of a basic ability to love and care about children. "It seems a mechanical exercise," he said.

But council officer Richard Lake said the love of children was a primary requirement to reach the first level qualification for a foster carer.

Assessments of foster carers according to the new system is due to start this month.

To reach level two, carers must have a minimum of six months experience and further qualifications depend upon assessments, courses undertaken, attendance at foster care groups, written submissions and the age of children taken on.

Used courtesy of the The Sentinel, Stoke