Responding today to a new resource and report published by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales which aims to support local authorities and their partners to improve the services they provide to vulnerable children and young people, Cllr Meryl Gravell, WLGA Social Services Spokesperson said:
“Every local authority in Wales recognises their corporate parenting role and their responsibility for safeguarding vulnerable children and young people within their communities. Despite unprecedented increases in the demand for children’s services and with the cost of care rising significantly, our performance is improving, both in terms of the quality of care we provide and the choice of placements for vulnerable children and young people.”
“Practice has come a long way over the last few years and permanency within and outside of the system has improved greatly. Most local authorities are in contact with care leavers, there are leaving care teams across every Welsh council, advocacy services, Children’s Right’s officers and lead Elected Members for Children’s Services. To ensure that looked after children have the best opportunity for reaching their potential, there are ‘looked after children education advisors’ in every council.
“Local authorities are also working more collaboratively then ever before through social services consortia. Social services departments are working closely together and with their education and housing partners across local government and with external partners to ensure that the needs of vulnerable children and care leavers are fully understood and acted on.”
Speaking of the financial pressures facing local authority children’s services budgets, Cllr Gravell added:
“Whilst performance is improving, we are facing some of our toughest financial times. Service pressures are growing, yet the resources available to deliver these are becoming increasingly finite. As public finances tighten over the next few years, we will need to become even better at achieving much better value for money when commissioning placements as well as supporting the development of placement choice in the market.”
Parry Davies, President, ADSS Cymru added:
“We and the WLGA work very closely with the Children’s Commissioner’s office and Welsh Government and will look very closely at the report recommendations to identify how local authorities can better respond to the rights and entitlements of young people and equip them for independent living.”
“We fully recognise the trauma that vulnerable children have been through up to the point they are taken into care and it our job is to equip these children for independent living in the time they are in our care.”
“Safeguarding children is not an option – it’s our responsibility and duty as corporate parents. We have three clear aims for building on our performance: firstly, having a shared focus on improving the outcomes for children and young people, secondly working together to make better use of limited local authority resources and thirdly, working together to re-shape the services that already exist across Wales to ensure that all placements are appropriate for children and young people, offer stability and are of the highest quality.”
