4. How is the Welsh Government supporting young people living in care to find appropriate housing that meets their needs to live independently? OAQ54673

We've invested an additional £10 million this year to tackle youth homelessness, including funding specific projects for care leavers. Our focus is on strengthening the arrangements in place to successfully transition young people from care into independent living, with a joint housing and social services group driving forward this work.

Well, thank you for that answer, Minister, and there's no doubt that there are many good organisations out in the community that work with these young people to allow them to transition from the care setting into an independent living setting. Now, very often, we find that they move into one room or kitchenette in a house, where they have shared bathrooms, shared toilet facilities and maybe the access of a warden, who usually doesn't live on those premises, for support. Now, I've seen a bill for such accommodation and it works out at approximately £900 a month. Those young people, therefore, have to find their food, have to find their travel costs and their clothes costs, and they end up borrowing money as a consequence of trying to live normal lives. If they find work, they're then in a spiral because they can't get social housing because of debt. As a consequence, they are very much locked into that accommodation and they're still paying those high costs. Will you have discussions with organisations to ensure that they work with these young people to ensure that they are able to get out of that spiral and get into social housing? I saw a flat in my constituency—a one-bedroom flat. So, that will be one bedroom, one living room, one kitchen, one bathroom, all to themselves—not shared—for £400 a month. And they don't spend £400 a month on utilities, which is what the other cost would be. So, if we want to help these young people to become independent and to live independently in the community, get employment and become useful citizens, we need to work with those organisations to help them.

Yes, I absolutely agree with that. I don't know the specifics, and I would invite David Rees to write to me with the specifics of the case that he's mentioning. But there are a range of things that are provided through accommodation for young care leavers, and some of those are actual care. I'm afraid I don't know what's included in the rent that you mentioned—if there's a care package included or anything else. But what I do know is that, in the transition period for young people, we do have financial assistance available to them if they get into that circumstance and we are also working with registered social landlords and local authorities to make sure that that kind of debt does not debar you from being able to access social housing, for example. 

So, we know that care leavers have been disproportionately impacted by homelessness, and we very much want to address that. So, we've put a number of measures in. We've got a joint housing and social services group established to sit under both the ministerial homelessness task and finish group, which you'll be aware of, and the improving outcomes ministerial advisory group in order to make sure that we capture all of the issues together. I'm more than happy to share the work of that with the Member, as a result of this question. 

Leaving care, of course, is one of the most difficult times in a young person's life and some people—young people in particular—do not feel quite ready to manage on their own. In such circumstances, supported accommodation, such as community living schemes or supported housing, will be considered. I've been around some fantastic provision in Conwy County Borough Council. However, demand is outstripping the supply, and I've established, through chatting with elected members and also officers, that less then 50 per cent of individuals with learning difficulties or disabilities, in fact, are able to access such supported schemes in Conwy. And I'm also mindful of the actual cost associated with some of these schemes—they can be over £1,000 a month. What support are you giving to local authorities in order that they can at least try and meet some of the demand that actually seems to be increasing now on a week-by-week basis—the need for this kind of supported living scheme?

We have a range of measures, as I've just said in response to David Rees, and we're also looking at a suite of other measures across the Government. So, as I mentioned, we've got the joint housing and social services group, which is sitting under the homelessness action group and the ministerial group, to look at the range of options available for young people leaving or have left care, aged between 16 and 24 years old. It also looks at the ongoing support arrangements in place to help support young people transitioning to more independent living. And as Janet Finch-Saunders has just mentioned, there are a range of different provisions, from full care, really, in supported accommodation, to putting you into accommodation where you've got ordinary tenancy support, but not care arrangements. There's a very large range. If there's care being provided, that has to be in a registered address. So, it's very hard to have a general conversation about a very specific set of things.

We also, of course, have the When I Am Ready scheme that enables young people in foster care to continue with their foster carers until they turn 18, if that's what they and their foster carers want and it's in their best interests, or up until the age of 21, if they're completing an agreed programme of education or training.

So, if you've got anything specific in mind, I'm very happy to talk to you about those specifics, but, in general, we have a range of provision that is supported by our various grants. We've just added £1 million to the St David's Day scheme, for example, in order to support these kinds of schemes for young people leaving care.