I am very pleased to contribute to this debate to seek to speak up for the needs of our looked-after children here in Wales and to pay tribute to the many fantastic individuals working with them, loving them and supporting them. Without their incredible dedication to our most vulnerable children, many would be left without the individual comfort and love that only a parent or carer can provide. This debate follows a recent report from the Prison Reform Trust as regards looked-after children and the link that my colleague, Mark Isherwood, made, calling for good joint working, proper regulation and policy development across Wales.

Schools with pupils who are looked-after children are eligible for the relevant pupil deprivation grant funding, which, alongside Communities First, is concentrated in our most deprived areas, but, again, is there to help looked-after children. The Welsh Conservatives have previously highlighted our concern though that this grant lacks effective outcome measures, and I would urge the Cabinet Secretary today to look into that and ask what consideration he will give to the impact of Welsh Government funding on the education outcomes of looked-after children, particularly in Communities First areas. What outcome measures will the Welsh Government place on the pupil deprivation grant to ensure that it is being utilised to effectively improve outcomes for all children, including our looked-after ones?

Since the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales and the shocking findings of the Waterhouse inquiry, we have seen numerous strategies put forward with the aim of improving welfare and, most importantly, protection for our children. However, we do still see a marked difference in outcomes across the board, with some of the statistics requiring improvement. I have casework experience where looked-after children are in foster care and then they move into adoption and there seems to be a void then of support, and support is actually withdrawn. I know that families have come to me quite desperate, really, wanting a continuum of that support, because otherwise if they don’t get that support, quite often, sometimes those children can end up back in foster care or back within the local authority. It’s important that if we have families willing to love and nurture these children that they’re given every opportunity and every support. Furthermore, 45 per cent of care leavers aged 19 in Wales were not in education, employment or training and that is compared to 34 per cent in England and 31 per cent in Northern Ireland. So, there is work to be done there to bring those figures up.

Blind Children UK Cymru this week were concerned at the lack of children’s habilitation specialists in Wales and, again, this is another possibility that our most vulnerable children are missing out on this kind of support. Blind Children UK Cymru found also that only two local authorities reported involving parents and children in the decision-making process when considering their eligibility for services. It does raise concerns for the involvement and engagement of looked-after children and their carers—particularly for those who have more than one placement. I know in one of my examples I had three siblings of one family and for them to try and access services in that environment was very frustrating for their adoptive parents. On this note, I find it a particular concern to note that 9 per cent of our looked-after children had three or more placements in 2014-15 with a further 20 per cent having two placements. So, we’ve got to do everything we can to ensure that we match the right children with the right sort of families and that we do everything in our power to support them. Stability and consistency are valuable and reassuring mainstays are for a productive and positive home life, but we do need proactive joint working between social services, foster carers and children, with real input from the children throughout the process.

Llywydd, the future of looked-after children is, by the very definition, not just in the hands of those who come forward to help and support, but in our hands also. And, for every concern I raise today there are indeed some positive and wonderful outcomes for our looked-after children across Wales. However, we must be vigilant to ensure that there is consistency—a seamless transition and a seamless provision of care and support. We need a collaborative approach, to ensure that local authorities, social workers, schools, the third sector and, most importantly, children and their fosterers are involved in developing appropriate care plans and that we take any steps to improve the education and engagement here to secure a positive outcome for these amazing children across Wales.