A FATHER will receive £5,000 from Monmouthshire council after a report to the authority said a foster carer took £8,000 which was meant for his child.

Monmouthshire council will pay the money to the father of a child it placed into foster care in 2007 and 2008 as a "one off good will gesture".

This is after the father discovered that £8,000 he had placed into a bank account for his child had been taken by the foster carer, the council report said.

The report shows that the young person, who has not been named, was placed in foster care by the authority with the father's approval.

During that time the young person's father put monthly cash payments for his child into a bank account which he agreed could be in the foster carer's name - something the children's social services department did not know.

But in May 2008 the father discovered the money had been taken by the foster carer and reported it to the police, the report says.

The Crown Prosecution Service did not continue the case to court because of the private arrangement made between the father and foster carer and was unable to establish the exact use of funds.

The report said the CPS believed the father had no legal route of obtaining compensation or repayment.

At the time, the previous head of children's social services told staff and the young person's father that he would arrange for the department to reimburse him £5,000 as a gesture of good will.

The foster carer has since been removed from the council's foster carers register.

The council's cabinet member for children, young people and learning, councillor Liz Hacket Pain, made the decision that the money be paid to the father on Wednesday.