Unfortunately, while these children may believe that they're escaping from a source of danger or unhappiness, they are at increased risk, of course, of harm during the missing episode. Children who go missing face the risk of sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation or human trafficking, and according to the Children's Society's research, 25 per cent of children who had run away overnight had either been hurt or harmed or had slept rough or with someone they had just met or had stolen or begged to survive. Now, these children face complex risks, and we need to make sure that we have a multi-agency response that keeps these children safe.

I want to focus my comments on three areas that largely determine the response children receive when they go missing, on which there is room for improvement in the current response to missing children. To do this, I'll structure my contribution this afternoon on the safeguarding process taken when a child is reported as missing.

So, firstly, I want to turn to information sharing. When a child is first reported as missing, as first responders, of course, the police will start to look for the child and, crucially, they'll decide, on a spectrum of risk, how unsafe the child may be and determine, therefore, their response accordingly. Now, to increase the chances of finding the child and keeping them safe, the police need information about where the child could be and whom he or she might be with. Without a complete picture of the risks these children face, drawn from a range of agencies, police officers will be unable to adequately assess the risks faced by children, leaving those children, of course, in danger. This is especially the case with children who are at risk of exploitation or trafficking.

The most effective way of having a robust risk assessment for these children is through multi-agency working. This involves members from police, health, education, children's services and the third sector all sharing information to build a holistic profile of a child at risk of going missing and to use that information to provide a child with appropriate support to prevent him or her from going missing repeatedly. Now, the Gwent multi-agency missing team exemplified the effectiveness of this, with missing incidents in the area decreasing by over 30 per cent since its inception, and I know we'll be hearing more about that later on in this debate.

However, findings from the Children's Society and the Church in Wales's joint report show that, of the local authorities who have provided information, 12 said that they don't share risk assessments with police and don't have a multi-agency partnership in place to allow agencies to share information. Now, this makes the police's task of trying to find the child more difficult and, therefore, could put a child who is known to be at risk in even more danger. There has to be a way for agencies across Wales to be able to share information with each other. Not only does doing so potentially protect a child from risks and, in extreme cases, save a child's life, but it can also enable agencies to better target their resources, thereby, of course, realising savings in the medium to longer term.

The UK Government has announced the creation of a new national missing persons database that will enable police forces to track missing children across boundaries. As children and, indeed, adults who go missing or face risks don't respect administrative boundaries, well, we need to ensure that these boundaries don't prevent close working and sharing information to keep those children safe. One way in which we can move forward with this in Wales is that local authorities, the all-Wales heads of children's services and police forces in Wales should agree a procedure whereby local authorities can place a marker on police systems identifying the risks to children so that the police have a clear understanding of the risks facing children when they go missing and then they can respond accordingly. This will help the police understand the risks to children when they go missing and help keep them safe.

Secondly, I want to turn to another vital part of the puzzle in keeping children safe. When a child is found or returns from a missing episode, he or she should be offered a debrief, which can also be called a return home interview. Now, a debrief gives a child an opportunity to talk about the missing episode, which can involve discussing where the child was during the episode and whom he or she was with. Debriefs also allow practitioners to understand the reasons why a child may have gone missing.

Although debriefs, by themselves, can't stop children from going missing repeatedly, they can be an effective safeguarding tool that can help to provide a child with support that could help prevent them from going missing again. If the interview provider is independent of statutory services, as they should be, a child may find it easier to trust the interview provider and the process, and, therefore, this introduces the child to a person in whom he or she could confide, instead of going missing in future. However, under the current all-Wales protocol for missing children, offering missing children a debrief is not a statutory requirement, whereas it is a legal duty in England. 'The Knowledge Gap' report illustrates the consequences of this lack of legal requirement. The report shows that four out of the 13 local authorities who provided information provide debriefs on a case-by-case basis, meaning that children who go missing aren't guaranteed an opportunity to talk about their experience and given support to, potentially, prevent them from going missing repeatedly. In north Wales, I know the situation has become urgent. Since the police innovation fund, which paid for debrief provision in north Wales, was discontinued by the UK Government, it's alarming that the average number of debriefs provided per quarter has decreased dramatically. So, to help address this, revising the all-Wales protocol for missing children provides us with a vital opportunity to make offering debriefs a statutory requirement across Wales, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments on this recommendation in particular, later on.

Finally, I wanted to turn to a group of children who are particularly at risk of going missing and therefore need a particular response. Now, these are children who are in care of the local authority but are placed in another authority area, known, of course, as children placed out of area. In some cases, looked-after children may need to be placed out of their home local authority area to safeguard them from risks identified in their home area. In 2015-16, around 1,500 children in Wales lived in placements outside of their local authority area. Now, this equates to around 27 per cent of all looked-after children in Wales. And it's now known that children who are placed out of their local authority areas are more likely to go missing—one of the key reasons for this being that, of course, they may try to return to any support networks they may have back in their home area. If a child who is placed out of area has had previous experiences of going missing, then this should be noted in any risk assessments that are passed on from the local authority placing the child to the local authority who is receiving the child into their care. This information should also be shared with the receiving police force, who may be the first statutory agency to pick up the child when they first go missing. 

Unfortunately, research from the Children's Society and the Church in Wales shows that 13 out of the 14 local authorities who responded to this question don't provide police forces with risk assessments of children placed in their areas, stating that it would be the responsibility of the placing local authority to do so. However, that is contradicted by the fact that only five out of the same 13 local authorities stated that they themselves shared a risk assessment with the police when they placed a child in a different area. So, it's clear that the police are vital. They're a vital agency in protecting children who go missing and should be informed when a child, and a child at high risk of going missing by the nature of their placement, is placed in their area. And I would echo the Children's Society and the Church in Wales's recommendation that this becomes a statutory requirement for local authorities to notify and share a risk assessment with the receiving police force when they place a child in their area.

Llywydd, I hope that you agree that this issue is urgent and timely. Revising the all-Wales protocol for missing children is an opportunity to put right the issues raised in this debate and endeavour to provide effective safeguarding support for all children in Wales who go missing. Good work is happening in Wales to safeguard missing children, and it's an endeavour we share, I'm sure, across parties, to keep improving our response to these vulnerable children and young people. We now have the opportunity to spread this good work across the country, and I would urge the Government, in response to this debate, to take action. Diolch.