People who care for the children of relatives or friends could soon get financial assistance without having to register as a council childminder or foster carer.

The rules are being introduced by Derby City Council as part of its new Kinship Policy, a document designed to provide more flexibility for the care of children in the city.

Kinship care is a term where designated relatives or friends take over the care of children who, for some reason, are unable to live with their parents.

Under the current rules, if a carer wants financial support for the child, the youngster has to first be transferred into the care of social services and the carer must apply to become a foster carer.

But now the council is bringing in rules to allow some kinship carers, such as grandparents, to get financial support without the child having to be put under council care.

The idea is to make a more informal arrangement which removes some of the stigma for children seen as being under the care of social services.

They can be cared for more informally by a relative but social services will help out so the carers do not have to bear the financial burden of kinship on their own.

Sarah Davis, children and family services manager for Derby's social services, said: "Why does a child in care need to be stigmatised when they could be looked after perfectly well? We now haven't got this enormous pressure to bring them into public care."

Ms Davis said that financial support could range from one-off payments for things like a new school uniform to a regular weekly sum.

However, any regular payment to Kinship carers would be less than what is currently paid to regular foster carers.

Derby City Council currently has 359 children on its books, of which about 10 per cent are looked after by friends or relatives.

Keith Hamilton, 43, of Burton, fosters four teenagers. He said: "There's a lot of rigmarole attached to being a foster carer. And if you are talking about a relative like a grandma, auntie or uncle, it often seems unnecessary.

"It is a big enough thing for a child to lose a parent. The new policy is much more beneficial to the children and could mean that they end up with a relative instead of a perfect stranger."

Councillor Chris Williamson, deputy leader of the city council, said: "It is obviously more cost effective to support a policy like this than keep a child in care."

He denied the scheme bribed families into caring for a relative's child.

"What this does is remove the barriers in order to help out people in something that they may previously have been excluded from," he added.

Used courtesy of the Derby Telegraph