I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for those questions. We are bringing this statement here to this Chamber today because we are very concerned about the rise in the number of children in care, and I think I've gone through the ways that we hope to address it. She is right; there's been a 34 per cent increase over the last 15 years, and we just cannot let this go on. We can't let it go on for the sake of the children, and that is the whole reason that we are doing this—we are putting the children first. And we know that, wherever possible, we want the children to remain in their own homes. So that is the reason behind us doing this.

In terms of 25 per cent being out of county, and some of them being out of country as well, it obviously is much better for children if they can be placed nearer their families, and near their network of local services. The contact that I've had with children who are in care—one of the main things that they say is that they want to keep contact, particularly with their siblings. They just want to see their brothers and sisters. And if you put them a long way away, that is very difficult. So, we are encouraging local authorities to develop facilities within their own areas, on a regional basis, so some of these children who go outside Wales, with very expensive placements, are able to be placed within the country—this country, within Wales. There have been some very good developments on that. The regional partnership boards are actually doing that at the moment, and we have provided them with particular sums of money to do that. So, we are moving in that direction.

Why only 16 authorities? Twenty-two authorities have agreed with our aims. Twenty-two authorities are supportive of the agenda that we have set, but only 16 authorities have actually come up with the reduction that they'd like to bring about. And we're very pleased that those authorities have responded in the way that they have with very sensible well-thought-out ways of preventing children coming into care and rehabilitating children in a very, very positive way. As for the ones that haven't done that, we're still in conversation with them. So, that discussion is still going on.

I think there is an understandable nervousness amongst local authorities about putting forward the numbers that they would be able to reduce, because I think we can all understand that there is a nervousness about putting targets, and so I absolutely understand how the local authorities feel. But we are working with them, and we hope that the other six will be able to come forward, and we can work with them to support a stabilisation of the number of children that are coming into care. Because we have to take some action, and one of the best ways of doing it is for us to work with the local authorities to bring those numbers down. So, we're continuing to work with the six local authorities that, as yet, haven't actually given any numbers.

Absolutely, local authorities are under great financial pressure, and one of the huge pressures, which I think Janet Finch-Saunders referred to, is the huge amount of money they have to pay for some of these out of county placements. So, one of the ways of bringing down the impact on them is to help them to keep the children at home, nearer home, and that is one of the reasons why we've obviously given particular sums of money for the edge of care services. So, every local authority now in Wales has an edge of care service. So, I can assure her that we are very aware of the austerity programme. We've had a big debate about that in First Minister's questions today, and we know that there's a great deal of hardship being caused by some of the welfare reforms that have been brought in. But I really think that we cannot leave this situation to continue. So, we are working very hard at it for the sake of the children.