Firstly, I hear our stakeholders such as the older people’s Commissioner telling us that our statutory framework is broadly the right one, although only if we ensure that it is properly implemented. Secondly, I see for myself that the structures we tasked our partners to put into place, such as regional partnership boards and the safeguarding boards, are becoming embedded in our landscape of delivery in Wales. And I hear partners talking about the value that they bring. And thirdly, I have noticed, and continue to see day to day, the real commitment that staff and stakeholders from all parts of the sector have brought and continue to bring to this agenda. Whether it is helping to shape the statutory framework, challenging us to make sure we are heading in the right direction, or working hard to bring our shared aspirations to fruition, their effort is vital and it is ever-present. I look forward to the new impetus provided by the parliamentary review and our response to it, the long term plan, helping to take us further along this road of transformation.

Now, we've always been clear that this is a journey that we want to take with our stakeholders, with our social care staff and with our citizens, together. We've also been very clear that it will only be successful if all stakeholders and parts of the sector are co-operating and working together. And that does not just apply to the hands-on delivery of high-quality care and support, and the vital back-room functions of planning, commissioning and co-ordination that will make it happen. It also applies to how we value, regulate and support our workforce, to how we galvanise the sector to improve quality and become even better at supporting people to achieve their well-being outcomes, and to the crucial question of how we give public assurance that the sector is a safe, nurturing place for individuals who receive care and support.

Our Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, the companion to the social services and well-being Act, is the mechanism for addressing that key set of challenges. I'm therefore pleased to update you today on our progress with this aspect of the transformation journey. We are now into the third phase of implementation of the regulation and inspection Act. Since Royal Assent in January 2016 we have seen workforce regulation entirely changed, we've seen Social Care Wales stepping into a new quality improvement role, and now we see the regulation and inspection of care itself shifting to a new focus on outcomes.

In phase 1, in 2016-17, we worked with the sector to shape the arrangements by which service providers could register with Care Inspectorate Wales and shared our thinking about what information providers should, through their annual returns, put into the public domain.

In phase 2, in 2017-18, we worked extensively with our stakeholders and Care Inspectorate Wales to develop those service standards that will apply to care homes, secure accommodation services, residential family centres and, indeed, domiciliary support services as well. This Assembly agreed those requirements last December and I am very pleased that CIW, starting last month, are now in the process of registering our major groups of providers in the residential and domiciliary care sectors.

So, I now turn to phase 3, which covers adoption, fostering, adult placement and advocacy services. These services have their own distinct special features and complexities, which is why my predecessor in this post, Rebecca Evans, resolved to allow a longer development process and a staged implementation. I am very pleased to acknowledge here the commitment and the energy that stakeholders interested in these sectors have devoted to working with us to help shape those requirements. You should expect to see consultations relating to fostering, adult placement and advocacy services launching imminently, to be followed by a consultation on adoption services in the early autumn. And, subject to the agreement of this Assembly, I hope to see registration opening and the standards we have consulted on applying to service providers in these critical areas from April 2019.

But, our journey does not stop there. It continues further into the future, because the market stability provisions in the Act will be developed over the next year, to come into operation in 2020. These will add another layer to our arrangements for understanding the local and, in turn, the national care market, to support good planning, good commissioning and management. At the same time, domiciliary care workers will be required to register with Social Care Wales as the workforce regulator. This is being facilitated by our recent decision to allow voluntary registration for domiciliary care workers from this year. Similarly, registration for residential care workers will become mandatory in 2022, following a two-year voluntary registration period. These are important parts of our valuing the workforce agenda, giving these vital workers the protection, the recognition and the support accessible through registration. Underpinning all of this work will be the lessons of review and evaluation, in the shape of a formal evaluation of the social services and well-being Act, to be tendered for shortly, together with suitable and proportionate arrangements in respect of the 2016 Act further down the line.