8. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the Children’s Commissioner’s Hidden Ambitions report? OAQ(5)0144(CC)

The £1 million St David’s Day fund I announced in March will support care leavers to move successfully towards independence and progresses many of the commissioner’s recommendations. The improving outcomes for children ministerial advisory group that you chair is leading this work.

And I very much welcome the St David’s fund. I think that is an innovative and imaginative way of improving the well-being of many looked-after children’s lives. I wonder how impressed you were also by the commissioner’s findings that social services, housing and education departments need to both co-operate and co-ordinate their work to improve the independence of care leavers, and that this work would be very much in line with the principles of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. And it’s important that we get that information across to local authorities and others.

Indeed, and the commissioner is absolutely right to make reference to this. We see much better outcomes where social services and housing departments work together, as opposed to in isolation. Otherwise, we see young people ending up in bed and breakfasts or other solutions that they may find appropriate within that department. I’ve told my team that I expect all organisations that have involvement here to have a joined-up approach to the delivery of services for looked-after children and children that are in care. I genuinely hope that we can make this better as we move forward, but I’m sure the Member, through his work, will keep scrutiny on and keep me well informed about how that’s working in practice.