Employers and referrals
169.Subsection (2) deems who the ‘employer’ of the foster carer is considered to be, which is significant in terms of entitlement to disclosure records. For public fostering, the employer is deemed to be the council or voluntary agency who made the arrangements; for permanence orders and supervision requirements the employer is deemed to be the council; and for private fostering it is the person who made the fostering arrangements and has the power to terminate those arrangements. Subsection (3) disapplies the offences in sections 34 to 37 of the Act in relation to work as a foster carer under a permanence order or a supervision requirement.
170.Subsection (5) provides that section 3 (referral following disciplinary action) will apply to foster carers and ‘dismissing an individual’ in employment situations should be read as ‘terminating the fostering arrangements’ in the context of fostering.
