Young people in care - Money

Your carer or worker will give you weekly pocket money. How you get it depends on your age and how well you manage your money.

If you're 16-17 and working or receiving benefits, you might get less pocket money. This reduction starts when you have more than £85.50 a week to spend after expenses.

If your carer or worker thinks you're struggling to manage your pocket money, they might withhold it for a while or only let you spend it when you're with them. For example, if you're being bullied for money or if you're buying unhealthy things.

How much pocket money you'll get

While you're in care, we'll provide a weekly savings allowance and look after it for you until you turn 18:

• Age 0-10: £2.50 a week.
• Age 11-17: £5 a week.

After you've been in care for a year, we'll add these savings to a junior ISA for you.

If you're 18 and in education or training, you could get a student bus travel card (half price bus fares in Hertfordshire) and / or a student train travel
card (30% off train fares). That depends on your assessed travel needs.

When you first start to be looked after, you might not have all the clothes you need. In that case, we might give you a one off clothing allowance. This allowance is paid to your carer.

The maximum allowance is set out below – what you receive will
depend on what you need.

You and your carer or worker will decide how your weekly allowance is used. You might decide to save it for a shopping spree or to use it all in one go each month.

Your carer or worker must make sure that you have enough essential clothing, such as school uniform, shoes and a coat, before you can spend your allowance on other items.

You might get an additional allowance for school uniform or work clothes to help when you change schools or start work. This will be paid to your carer or keyworker. The allowances are:

You'll get £100 which may be in the form of a gift card or money. In addition to this amount, your carer or keyworker will have a further allowance to spend on celebrating your birthday, Christmas or festival of your choice.

Depending on your needs and the type of education or training you're in, you might be entitled to a grant of up £475 a year. That's for things like stationery, software, education visits and books.

If you're 16–21 and taking a further education course (level 2 or above), you could get a one-off computer grant of up to £500.

If driving lessons are agreed and set out in your pathway plan, we'll pay for 1 provisional driving licence, 1 theory test, 1 practical test and 5 one hour driving lessons. That's if:

• you match the cost of 5 one hour driving lessons
• you're in education, training or employment for 3 months. Lone parents and young people with disabilities might be exempt from this
• you have no driving convictions.