Plymouth kinship carer wins legal bid over slashed payments

Sarah Becker. A judge found that the calculations Plymouth council had used to reduce the payments she got as a special guardian were irrational. Photograph: Handout

A woman who is a kinship carer for her two grandchildren has won a judicial review against Plymouth council, after a judge quashed the model used by the council to calculate the money it pays to bring them up on the grounds that it was irrational.

Plymouth council will now have to recalculate and back pay the allowances not only to Sarah Becker, 56, but to all special guardians in the local authority area who took in young relatives when they were already responsible for their own dependent children.