Care News: Julie Morgan - We are eliminating profit from the care of looked after children

​Encouraging more people to become foster parents is a crucial part of the Welsh government’s plans, writes the deputy minister for social services in the Welsh government.

Our Programme for Government sets out our vision to transform children’s services in Wales. Our ambition is for whole system change, with more children and young people supported to remain with their families and fewer entering care. We also want to ensure the time spent in care is as short as possible.

Part of this agenda includes a commitment to “eliminate private profit from the care of children looked after”.

Care-experienced young people have told us very clearly they do not wish to be looked after by privately owned organisations that make a profit from their time in care. We agree with them. No one should be making money from the challenges some young people and their families face. We will legislate to make sure that, in Wales, the market in children and young people’s care will end.

The future of care in Wales will be provided by public sector, charitable or not-for-profit organisations, with opportunities for private providers to transition to not-for-profit entities.

Understanding the challenges
Everyone is aware of the pressure on public spending. As well as being the right thing to do, eliminating profit from the care of children and young people is the prudent thing to do. We have to ensure that every penny invested in the care of children is spent on delivering improved services, a better experience for young people and their families and the best possible outcomes.

What we have to spend on some of our most vulnerable young people does not allow for individuals or corporate entities to profit, especially at the exceptionally high rate some of them do.

The initial focus will be on the private provision of residential care for children, alongside independent sector foster care.

We fully understand the challenges facing us and why we have reached a stage where radical reform is necessary. We know our care population is larger than comparable areas elsewhere in the UK. The long-term trend of increasing use of care, along with presentation of more complex needs, has presented significant challenges to local authorities, especially as costs of placements in the private sector have risen.

Huge scale of transformation
We want to ensure we have sustainable, stable placements in place so young people feel a sense of belonging and security. We do not believe this infrastructure can be developed by private sector providers that operate commercially rather than as part of a sector aimed at reducing the number of care-experienced young people.

The scale of this transformation is huge. More than 80% of care homes for children and young people in Wales are run by the private sector. In July 2022 there were 223 private sector care home services for children, providing a total of 908 places, and 37 public or not-for profit services, providing 160 places. Nine Welsh local authorities are wholly reliant on the private sector for their children’s care home provision. This is neither right or sustainable.

This is not about like-for-like replacement of one type of provider by another. Our vision is to redesign provision so it is needs based and does the best for children, young people, their families and communities, by providing services that are based, designed and accountable locally.

Encouraging more people to become foster parents is a crucial part of this work. Foster Wales, the national network of 22 Welsh local authority fostering services, will help us to build the capacity of foster care provision and attract more people to come forward to provide care in the public sector.

Morally right and urgent
Everything we do will be done alongside young people. We are holding a summit meeting between more than 40 ambassadors of care-experienced young people, the first minister of Wales and Welsh ministers early this month. After the summit we will set out a shared vision of what care services for young people will look like for the next 10 years. We are upping our game as far as corporate parenting is concerned too with new guidance due to be published shortly.

We believe legislation can provide us with tools that will help deliver our commitment. In our recent consultation on our legislative proposals, we asked for views to shape how we deliver the commitment.

Working together with our young people, our local authority, civil society and the third sector we will develop a system where social values as well as the best interests and outcomes for children and young people are embedded within the services delivered.

Eliminating private profit from the care of looked after children is morally right, necessary, sustainable and urgent.

Julie Morgan (Lab), deputy minister for social services in the Welsh government

Source:
www.lgcplus.com

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