Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 6 October 2020.
Llywydd, I thank Angela Burns for that. I think, earlier in the summer, when the Barnardo's report was published, we were able to correct some of the misreporting of those figures, because those figures do not reflect the position of foster care in Wales, where we've actually had quite a healthy recruitment of foster carers during the pandemic and where we have been able to go on making foster care places available to those young people who need them. Now it is, as Angela Burns will know, a constant effort to make sure that we are recruiting the people we need to offer foster care, sometimes to young people who've got some significant issues in their lives—sometimes those are physical disabilities, sometimes they are the legacy of their own histories. And we will go on to create a national fostering network here in Wales, to make sure that opportunities for people who wish to become foster carers, and young people who need foster caring, do not end at the boundaries of their own local authorities, mirroring some of the success we have had in the national adoption service. So, the position in Wales is not quite as the reporting of the Barnardo's report might have led some people to believe. It's been reasonably sustained in this very difficult period, but there's always more we want to do.