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The Quality and Purpose of Care Standard
Pocket money, leisure and clothing allowances provided within residential care can be used to help children develop money management and finance skills and awareness.
In May 2022, this chapter was updated throughout.
All young people who live at The Ride receive pocket money. The money is paid into the young person’s bank account. Where a young person does not have a bank account, they are issued with a Pre-payment card which they can use until they have a bank account. Staff support the young people to develop their budgetary skills by planning their expenditure, which is vital to assist in a successful move to independent living.
Current pocket money rates are:
| Age | Weekly Amounts |
| 12-13 Years | £11.00 |
| 14-17 Years | £13.00 |
Deductions to pocket money can be made as a result of sanctions incurred by the young person e.g. reparation due to misappropriated spending of petty cash issued. However, the young person must be left with 1/3 of their pocket money allowance in a single week.
A clothing allowance of £45.00 per month is available to all young people placed at The Ride. The money can only be spent with a member of staff, unless young people have proved themselves to be responsible or as part of a semi-independence programme.
When a young person arrives at The Ride, they receive a toiletries pack which should ‘tide them over’ until they receive their first toiletry allowance, which like clothing, is payable after being here for a full calendar month and, like clothing, is paid on the first day of each month. The current allowances are:
| Boys | £14.00 per month |
| Girls | £18.00 per month |
£10.00 per month is allocated to each young person on the first day of each month for haircuts/colour/treatments/products. The money can be saved for a more expensive cut/treatment.
Like the clothing and toiletries allowances, a £10.00 mobile phone credit is allocated to each young person on the first day of each month. The Ride likes all young people to have a mobile telephone so staff can contact them when they are out of the unit to try to ensure their safety. If a young person does not have a phone on admission, we buy them a basic handset for this purpose.
For birthdays, young people can have a chosen or surprise gift to the value of £25.00. The young person can also choose whether they would like a party, a take-away or meal out for a few friends or family at The Ride.
For Christmas or other religious festivals, each young person can choose or have a surprise gift to the value of £50.00. For both birthdays and Christmas/religious festivals we do not give the young people a cash alternative.
The Ride works towards developing young people’s financial and budgeting skills and when a young person approaches the age of 16, they go onto a personalised semi-independence programme and instead of receiving clothing/toiletry and haircare money monthly, they receive £17.00 weekly for this purpose and are encouraged to budget and save for the items they want to buy. Once it is identified young people will soon be leaving The Ride to move to semi-independent living they can also be allocated up to £50.00 per week to budget and buy their own food for the week, making the transition to semi-independent living a little easier.
For young people who are in receipt of a college bursary, they can either take a packed lunch with them or purchase their own lunch from their bursary.
In line with the London Pledge, after a young person has been in Care for a year, a trust fund is set up for each young person and £10 per week is saved for them. The young people do not have access to this money until they are 18 years old.
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