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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Children and childcare  →  Thread

Passport application for EU child - with Special Guardianship Order

Sue123
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EEA Family Support, Children's Centre Calderdale

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Hi
can someone please advice as I have no idea where to go with this one.
Grandparent from EU country has SGO for her granddaughter (EU nationality). She’s tried to get passport from embassy or British passport but both said she’s not the birth parent.
CSC say they can’t help. Where can I signpost her to? or what can I do to help her?
thank you

Prisca
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benefits section (training & accuracy) Bristol city council

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https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/118782/children-policy.pdf

This indicates that someone with a SGO has parental responsibility and should be able to apply - but thats for a UK passport - does the grandchild have british citizenship?

Sue123
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EEA Family Support, Children's Centre Calderdale

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This is also confusing. The child’s birth parents don’t have settled status so based on that, the child would not be able to get british passport. However the grandmother has settled status and had this when the child was born. Based on her status, the child would be able to get british passport. But in terms of SGO, I don’t know how it works?

nevip
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Welfare rights adviser - Sefton Council, Liverpool

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Sue123
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EEA Family Support, Children's Centre Calderdale

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Total Posts: 135

Joined: 16 February 2015

nevip - 30 May 2023 04:10 PM

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/14C


thank you
the question I had was to see where the grandparent can be signposted to, to get support as both Embassy and British passport office told her she’s not able to apply as she’s not the birth parent.
Also if the grandparent didn’t know she can’t travel for more than 3 months (as she’s got no contact with birth parents), what options has she got?
can she apply to adopt the child for example?

 

nevip
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Welfare rights adviser - Sefton Council, Liverpool

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Section 3(1) of the Children Act 1989 is in the following terms:

“In this Act “parental responsibility” means all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and his property.”

This clearly gives the grandparent the same rights over the child as the birth parents have, including the rights to claim benefits and make applications for documents, etc.

However, I can’t see how someone can get a UK passport if they are not a UK citizen. But then again, I’m not a specialist (or even a generalist) immigration adviser and, it seems to me, that immigration advice is what your client needs, at least in the first instance.

VRW
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Livin Housing

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a SG can apply for a passport for a child

it would be the case under section 4 of the application they would have to put the birth parents details down and on the signature page put her details down as special guardian and she would need to provide the SGO to show that she has the PR at the moment

Nationality normally goes through the parents first and then the grandparents

What i would say is get her to put in an application making sure under the parent details she puts the actual parents and not her and provide the SGO - itll get passed to a specialist worker at the passport officer to look into whether the child actually has a claim to a BC passport - if she doesnt have a claim through decent then it could be that the child needs to register in her own right to be a BC and once registered she can get a BC passport

But you might want to explain to her that if she puts the application in and it is refused due to no claim she wont get a refund on the application as its used to cover any admin costs