There is a lack of resource at the front line, but it's not just a question of money; it's how the money is spent. Let's look at children in care. There are roughly 6,000 children in care in Wales. In the last nine years, the number of children in care has gone up 36 per cent. So, there are 1,700 more children in care. The rate of children in care in Wales now stands at 102 per 10,000—significantly higher than the rate in England, which is 64 per 10,000. If we go back further and look at the number of children in care in 1991, it's more than doubled since. Why is this? Children in care account for over half the total budgeted expenditure on children's and family social services in 2018-19. Public care applications in the last 10 years have more than doubled. An enormous amount of money is spent on fighting cases against parents in the most aggressive way. It's a real David and Goliath situation, except, in most cases, David doesn't even have a sling. Again, the cost to the public purse is enormous—enormous. A system of parental advocacy with teeth should be brought in to reduce the amount of children put into care. Such a system could support families, reduce costs and, crucially, bring about better outcomes for children.

According to the Welsh Government, the average cost of a local authority placement is £23,000, compared to an independent agency costing £43,000 per year. Some of the most complex young people, on average, cost about £6,500 per week. In February 2018, Caerphilly had the highest cost placement at £16,500 a week. Cardiff spent £64,000 per child—per looked-after child—in 2016-17. Now, it would be cheaper for a child to go to boarding school and to go on holiday during the holidays and have that paid for by the public purse than to be put into care. It's an incredible situation. Taking children into care has become a lucrative business, so, Minister, you have an industry to confront.

Let's touch on anonymous examples. Now, family A—I won't say where—reports conclude that the parents love the children. There's no physical threat to the children. Children's services admits that the children love the parents, but, according to the lead councillor of that council, the skills of the parents are not up to scratch. The parents actually approached children's services for support with one child. The child had a very difficult birth, there was a lack of oxygen to the brain, and the child spent a lot of time with mother in hospital. It would have been logical to look at the medical reasons for behaviour of the child, but children's services refused to do this and they blamed mother. On the basis of the behaviour of one child, all four children were taken into care. The resulting emotional collapse of those children was not taken into account. Errors were made in assessment—factual errors. Mother was blamed for not attending medical appointments, and that was used as evidence of neglect. On those dates, mother was in hospital with the child.

Those serious errors are still uncorrected, and what a shock: in 10 years of experience in dealing with such cases, it is almost impossible—impossible—to get factual errors in reports corrected, many of which end up before the courts. So, judges make judgments on cases in which they are misinformed—they're given bad information. All interviews between parents and children's services should be digitally recorded. The data can be kept securely on a cloud and, crucially, there would be evidence to iron out sometimes really serious errors—really serious.