I've really enjoyed listening to this debate today and, as you know, we're very happy to accept the majority of the committee's recommendations.

The report rightly has a clear focus on evaluating and monitoring the impact of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, and placing the voice and experiences of service users at the heart of the system. As well as the evaluation studies we've undertaken, compliance with the Act is assessed by the regulators CIW and HIW, supplemented by a national performance improvement framework and local authority reporting. And through our rebalancing reforms, we will ensure that this evolves further.

Users and carers are helping us to shape the rebalancing programme through the various task and finish groups, including one specifically looking at co-production, engagement and voice across the regional partnership boards. The outputs from these groups will be consulted upon in the spring. The rebalancing task and finish group on engagement and voice is working with a range of stakeholders to co-produce tools and standards to improve service user and carer engagement and participation in social care services, and the work will be reflected in the national commissioning framework that is under development.

The experiences and expectations of service users were also considered by the expert group, which consisted of individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds and perspectives. The chair of the committee asked me to report on how far this group had got, and I'm pleased to say that the report has now been completed. It is now in the process of being translated, and will be published next month, in November. So, I'd like to put on record my thanks to the individuals who took part in that group. Once the report has been considered by Ministers and the Plaid Cymru designated Member, because, of course, this is a core part of our co-operation agreement, there'll be a period of extensive consultation to develop an implementation plan, which will be co-produced. We will, of course, ensure these consultations include service users, unpaid carers and the third sector, and community groups that represent their views and experiences.

The report also emphasised the importance of embedding the voice of service users in inspections. Between October 2021 and August 2022, CIW undertook 705 inspections of 614 adult care homes, and spent 9,181 hours on site, providing the opportunity to talk directly to residents, their families and friends. That is a key part of what CIW does: trying to engage directly with the residents. CIW also looks for evidence that people have a voice in the running of their home, which, again, is a very important point.

CIW are acutely aware of the continuing impact of the pandemic on social care, exacerbated by pressure on staffing. Where CIW finds poor outcomes, they require action and will return to check improvements that have been made. Such additional inspections could delay the completion of the planned programme, but the aim remains to have inspected all registered adult care homes between 1 October 2021 and 31 March 2023. I hope that reassures the committee.

Many Members have mentioned the issue about recruitment, pay and terms and conditions, and the report does highlight—and many people have mentioned today—the need to address these pressing issues. These are all being considered by the social care fair work forum, which brings together key partners from across the sector to find ambitious, pragmatic and achievable solutions, and to bring about real and lasting change. The forum has initially focused on improvements to pay, including advice on how to take forward the commitment to paying all care staff the real living wage, and I am proud that we have managed to pay the real living wage to social care workers in Wales. This has been supported by funding of £43 million this year. The chair asked about the uplift to the real living wage, and that is something that we are considering at the moment. Of course we want to pay it, but I think you will be aware that the financial circumstances at the moment are not very encouraging. But this is something we would certainly want to do. 

With regard to recruitment, we’re working with Social Care Wales to ensure robust evaluation of the WeCare.Wales campaign. Social Care Wales has already commissioned research into care employers’ methods of recruitment, including their awareness of the campaign and its impact, and that will be completed at the beginning of next year. I think it is difficult to establish how successful certain recruitment campaigns are when we have such a myriad of providers providing social care in Wales because of the large number of care homes in the independent sector.

The report recognises the potential for greater use of volunteers in care homes, which a number of Members have brought up, and in our written response we detailed the work we are undertaking with our partners to broaden the role, reach and skills of volunteers in these settings and to grow their numbers. I am very keen to encourage volunteers to be more involved in care homes and a key consideration will be ensuring that volunteers’ roles are clear and appropriate, and focusing on added value.

We fully agree that citizens’ experiences must be the basis and impetus for all improvements in social care provision, and we accept the principle behind the committee’s recommendation to introduce an additional mandatory requirement to share this information. However, I’m not convinced that, at the moment, the costs of implementing this across hundreds of providers outweigh the benefits over and above the information sharing measures already in place. However, it is something that we can consider in the future. On top-up fees, I would be deeply concerned if any individual is being charged for care where that care is already provided free of charge through the public purse, and I note the comments that several Members made about having to pay top-up fees to access the garden, which is absolutely ridiculous. So, I think that would be completely wrong.

There are already clear guidelines on additional services in the continuing healthcare framework, and such personal contribution arrangements must never be used as a mechanism for subsidising the service provision for which the NHS is responsible. Therefore, we also do not think it’s appropriate to commit to amendments to regulations on top of these, or to initiate a new independent redress system, ahead of considering a report of the national care service expert group. We’d need to consider carefully how any consequential refinements we might make to the existing regulations and frameworks sit in the context of any new system, so we don’t feel able to accept that recommendation now.

Then finally, with regard to pooled funding for commissioning, the integrated services task and finish group has been reviewing existing arrangements as part of our rebalancing programme, and they’ve particularly taken into account the Audit Wales report on the commissioning of care home placements for older people. They will also review the impact of the toolkit that was co-produced with stakeholders. Recommendations from the task and finish group will form part of the consultation package next spring.

Finally, I’d like to thank the committee very much for its report, which I think is a very valuable report. There is clearly much to be done. There is a lot of work ongoing, and I look forward to continuing to work with our partners on this agenda through the various groups we have set up. We will be carefully bearing in mind the recommendations that the committee has made, and I'm happy to report back on those to the committee as they progress. Diolch.