3. What work is the Welsh Government undertaking to reduce the number of children in care in Wales? OQ57822

Thank you to Rhys ab Owen for the question. Too many children are removed from their families into the care system in Wales. Numbers have risen year on year over the last two decades. The Thomas commission provided a powerful analysis of this unhappy history, and with our local government partners we continue to pursue the policies that it proposed.

Thank you very much, First Minister, and I know that this is something very close to your own heart, and that you have been working to try and identify the problem.

The recent research by the Children's Social Care Research and Development Centre at Cardiff University commissioned by the Welsh Government saw an increase of 87 per cent in the rate of children in care from 2004 to 2020. And what surprises me is the huge variation within local authorities—so, Torfaen, an increase of 251 per cent, whilst Carmarthenshire has no increase whatsoever—and the local variations between somewhere like Torfaen and Newport. The fact that a child in Torfaen is five times more likely to enter the care system than a child in Carmarthenshire is totally wrong. Now, this information is not new; as you mentioned, it was in the Thomas report, something I became aware of around four years ago. So, can we please have an update from your programme for government of what you're doing to reduce the risk of children entering the care system, and why do we have such a huge variation between local authorities in Wales? Diolch yn fawr.

Well, thank you very much to Rhys ab Owen.

This is a really very significant matter of public policy here in Wales and he's absolutely right: the difference between different local authorities in Wales is absolutely striking and, to my mind, answers the point that is sometimes made that what the figures reflect are just different socioeconomic conditions in different parts of Wales. If that were the case, how would that explain the outstanding success of Neath Port Talbot council in more recent times in driving down the numbers that they have in care, with a further 21 per cent reduction in the last year alone? How does that explain why a council like Carmarthenshire has, throughout the period of devolution, succeeded in keeping its numbers down, while other councils with very similar characteristics have seen such sharp rises? Well, here are three possible explanations for it, Llywydd. One, and I think the most significant, is local practice cultures. It's just—. I was lucky enough to visit, with my colleague Julie Morgan, Carmarthenshire council and to talk to front-line workers and their supervisors, and the strength of the local culture, determined to do everything it could to keep families reunited, was, I think, the most powerful reason why it has had that success.

Then there is local leadership. In Neath Port Talbot, the point at which their numbers begin to fall is associated in my mind with the appointment of a new director of social services and a new leader of children's services, and they have demonstrated a powerful determination to turn around the pattern that they inherited as a council.

And then thirdly—and this is in the Thomas review, as the Member will know—there is the practice of the courts as well, and that varies from part of Wales to part of Wales, and we have to be able to draw into the conversation judges who sit in the family division. The president of the family division at a England-and-Wales level has recently said that it is the single most important issue in front of him to understand and address the rise in reception of children into care across the whole of England and Wales. And the position in Wales, Llywydd, is worse: we take more children away from their families in Wales, and we've done it at an accelerating rate compared to parts of England that look like comparable parts of Wales. That is why the issue is so urgent, but it's also why we can have some optimism about it. Things can be and are being done differently and we need that better approach to be adopted throughout Wales.

First Minister, in June last year, it was reported that Wales has the highest proportion of children in the UK being cared for by the state. There were 7,170 children being looked after away from home in Wales, which is actually 1.14 per cent of the children. As you and my colleague Rhys ab Owen mentioned, the rate has increased significantly here in Wales, and this trend is a cause for concern, particularly the impact on the outcomes for children who are taken into care in terms of educational attainment, health, unemployment, homelessness and criminal justice. However, there are local significant variations across local authorities here in Wales. Evidence suggests that these differences are linked to the interaction between safeguarding practices, levels of deprivation and parental factors, and there tends to be a greater emphasis in Wales on finding permanent placements for children, rather than achieving reunification between birth families and their children, even though reunification is desired by many families.

So, First Minister, since the responsibility for children in care does not fall into social services departments alone—and I know you mentioned in your previous answer the focus is on local governments, as well as the courts—and that a range of agencies do in fact provide services for children and families at risk, what is the Government specifically doing to improve working practices to facilitate better experiences and outcomes for those who come into contact with these services? Thank you.

Well, Llywydd, there are already things that we are doing as a Government. That includes the focus that my colleague Julie Morgan has brought to do this over the last three years. It includes working with the ADSS, the Association of Directors of Social Services, to promote the things that we know work in different parts of Wales. It's striking to me that in Carmarthenshire, which we mentioned earlier, there is a single director in charge of both education and social services, making sure that schools play their part in helping those families to stay together. In the budget that was passed on the floor of the Senedd here only last week, we have a new funding stream to provide advocacy for families at risk of having their children taken into public care, to make sure that, when those decisions are being made, the voice of the family is heard as powerfully as any professional involved in that decision. That's just one of a range of actions, Llywydd, that we are taking, and the determination of the Welsh Government to align ourselves with the need to reduce the number of children in public care in Wales is unwavering.

First Minister, would you agree with me that, when children are in residential care, the policy direction of Newport City Council is appropriate? Through its Project Perthyn, it's bringing provision of care for looked-after children back in-house, with out-of-authority placements returning to new Newport City Council homes. It's bringing those children back to their home areas, families and schools and providing top-quality care. Would you agree this is the right approach for our young people and in terms of the recent Competition and Markets Authority report on the children's social care market, which shows local authorities being overcharged by private providers, with profit margins of 22.6 per cent and average charges of around £3,830 per week?

Well, I do congratulate Newport council. Over the last decade, it has stood out as one of those authorities that has taken a range of actions to focus on helping families get through those difficult times that all families face, and where the repair of that damage, rather than rescuing children from it, is in the long-term interests of the child. And what they're doing in Project Perthyn is a very good example of that.

I want to pay tribute for a moment, Llywydd, if I could, to the children's commissioner Sally Holland, Professor Sally Holland, who's about to retire after seven years in that role, and there'll be an event here at the Senedd next week to mark that occasion. It's the power of her reports, reflecting the views of young people in care themselves, that lead this Government to have a commitment to eliminate private profit making from the care of children in Wales.

Now, the Competition and Markets Authority conclude from their report, which shows just how badly the market is working, that what you need is the market to work better. Of course, we conclude the opposite: what you need is not to have a market in the care of children. Markets are just not the right method to provide for those vulnerable young people. And the work that Newport is doing is very important in that.

Eliminating profit is about values as well as cost. It's about putting needs ahead of what is profitable. There's £10 million in the budget to help local authorities in this transition, in this transition, and amongst that will be—. I'm thinking of the point that Natasha Asghar mentioned; we now have plans in from six of the seven regional partnership boards, which we will fund, to create new regional centres where we can draw children, not simply keeping children in their own families, but we can draw children who are looked after outside of their county back into their county, closer to their families; we can draw children who are paid for very expensively outside of Wales closer to where those families live. Those regional centres will be really important in providing a resource where those young people can be looked after properly and successfully, and we're on a journey here, definitely, but I'm very encouraged to see that six of those seven regional partnership boards have put forward proposals and that we as a Welsh Government are committed to funding them.