8. How is the Welsh Government monitoring the implementation of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014? OQ57996

We are monitoring the implementation of the Act through a range of mechanisms. We are collecting data as part of the performance and improvement framework and undertaking an evaluation of the Act. I will be publishing the final evaluation report later this year.

The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 places a specific duty on local authorities to promote the involvement of people in the design and delivery of care and support services. However, almost daily, I receive cases where public bodies have dictated how they will communicate with autistic and neurodiverse people and their families and carers, regardless of their individual communication and processing needs.

I also note that the report following February's Wales carers summit states that the key themes covered the need for general improvements in carers accessing and benefiting from their rights within the social services and well-being Act, and that in response to a statement, carers have told us they're often ignored or seen as unimportant by health and social care professionals, despite providing the majority of care in Wales and having rights under the Act. The chief executive of Social Care Wales recognised that the implementation of the Act is challenging and said a programme of work is also under way on strength-based approaches and person-centred planning to try and embed the aspirations of the Act.

How and when in practice will the Welsh Government therefore begin monitoring the Act's implementation by public bodies accordingly, to ensure that the Act's aspirations are embedded within this, eight years after the voice of the people concerned was supposed to be at the centre of this?

I thank Mark Isherwood for that very important question. As I said in my response, we have commissioned a large-scale evaluation of the 2014 Act carried out by the University of South Wales. There have already been several reports about the process and the experience of implementation, and I think the conclusion from all the work that's been done is that the principles and what's behind the Act are absolutely right. Everybody agrees that we've got the right legislation, and that the implementation is going on effectively.

But I think, as Mark Isherwood highlighted, in terms of the implementation of the Act and people's experiences on the ground, we still have a way to go, and I think what we'd have to say is that full implementation of the Act is not yet complete. So, the next steps and recommendations for improvement will be provided in the final impact report, and that will be published towards the end of this year.

We are monitoring the effectiveness of the Act very carefully, as are Care Inspectorate Wales, Social Care Wales and Audit Wales, and we absolutely accept that the experience of carers, for example, on the ground, is not yet where it should be. However, progress is being made. Incidentally, just before this Senedd meeting, I was very pleased to meet the UK chief executive of Carers Trust, who has come to visit Wales, who was very complimentary about the efforts that we are making to try to help unpaid carers in Wales, and is very keen to work with us as a Government.

I thank the two Deputy Ministers and the Minister for those responses in that session.