Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:21 pm on 13 November 2018.
Helen, thank you very much for those detailed comments. Let me begin where you began: our expectation is that all local authorities and those who provide support should rise to the level of the best. We know, as was remarked by the chair of the MAG earlier on, there is some really good practice out there; we've unearthed that ourselves. We expect that to be standard.
In terms of the rights-based approach—in some ways, this may be a trailer for a later debate this afternoon as well, where I'll be going large on the rights-based approached, but a rights-based approach is at the heart of this programme as well. The children's commissioner, who is a member of the group, has made sure that it is so, and we would want it to be so. So, even though it wasn't mentioned explicitly in the statement, it's right at the core of the work that we're doing in Government and in the group itself. You can have that assurance.
We have regular discussions, both at an official level but also with those directly involved in the family court service, and the family court service itself has, partly in response to the work of the ministerial advisory group, refreshed its approach to children experiencing care over recent years, and we expect it to keep on learning, not least, I have to say, from the 'Care Crisis Review' as well. The 'Care Crisis Review' was very helpful in that it said there is no one magic bullet—there are a range of things that you need to bring it up to the very best standard, not only in terms of support and provision at local authority level, but the way in which family courts also respond to cases appearing and not to have great regional disparity in the way that family courts respond to it.
You mentioned the assurance of sustainable solutions and funding—absolutely. Now, this is partly to do with making sure that the money is going into the right place. And the reason why we have the announcement today on the £15 million into regional partnership boards is because they are set up directly to do that basis of saying, 'What are the needs in our region? How do we make this apply in the very best way?', jointly working together, so it's not any more to do with pots of money, it's to do with a focus on the outcomes of those care-experienced children. But there also need to be sustainable solutions as well as sustainable funding, and that requires some creative and innovative approaches to working jointly. And one of the things we're very keen to do is to embed those ways of working across different agencies—local authorities, health and others—to make sure that they bring forward solutions that are long-lasting because they are more preventative, more early in the way that they intervene and in a more timely way. That is part of the sustainability as well.
I'm very happy to write in response to your request to Members to update them on the way we are approaching the inspection and regulation regime, but you also raised the issue of children's residential care, and this frequently appears, and I know that it's one of the things that the ministerial advisory group is looking at: do we have the right not simply secure accommodation but actually, beyond that, therapeutic care accommodation settings in the right place in all different parts of Wales? We think there is a job of work to be done on that, so we are now currently working with stakeholders to develop new approaches to therapy and care for children with particularly complex needs and challenging behaviours that might not necessitate secure accommodation but actually need a different, bespoke model for them. So, we are exploring the scope for regional approaches to this type of provision so we avoid the impact that one child in one authority then has a massive impact, and they look around in desperation to say, 'Well, where can we place this child?', and often that means out of county or sometimes out of country. So, the work is being taken forward by a task and finish group on children's residential care, and we hope that will not only improve our understanding of the profile of residential care for children, but also bring forward ideas on improving the range of therapeutic models available to residential care providers. But I think regionality on this is going to be key.
I think I might have dealt with all of the matters.