National Assembly for Wales

Good morning and welcome to today's meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. The Chair of the committee, Buffy Williams, has sent her apologies. So, the first item on today's agenda is the election of a temporary Chair. So, under Standing Order 17.22, I call for nominations for a temporary Chair for today's meeting. 

Could I nominate Vaughan Gething, please?

Thank you very much. Are there any other nominations? I can see that there are not. Are there any objections? I can see that there are not. In which case, I invite Vaughan to take the Chair.

Thank you very much. Thank you, all. We're going to move straight into our items. This is a meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. Public items of the meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv. The Record of Proceedings will be published as usual.

The meeting is bilingual. We have checked that the simultaneous translation is available for Members and witnesses. This morning, we have, as you'll be aware, received apologies from Buffy Williams, and there is no substitute. Are there any declarations of interest from Members? I can see there are none.

We'll move straight on to item 2, annual scrutiny of Care Inspectorate Wales. Please may I welcome Care Inspectorate Wales? Do you want to please introduce yourselves for the record? Gillian first, then Margaret.

Bore da. Good morning. I'm Gillian Baranski, and I'm the chief inspector of Care Inspectorate Wales.

Bore da. My name is Margaret Rooney, and I'm deputy chief inspector for Care Inspectorate Wales.

Fabulous, thank you. We're going to move straight into questions and we're going to start with Cefin.

Yes, it's quite frightening, isn't it, that it has been 10 years. [Laughter.] I think, looking back, one of the things that's changed has been the new legislation that was introduced and came into effect in 2016 and 2018. What that did was provide a platform for change within social care. So, it was Welsh legislation and it introduced different duties and outcomes.

I think what has been fundamental to what has changed is some of the relationships that have been strengthened through that period, by us, with, of course, local authorities and providers, but also with Social Care Wales, with other inspectorates within Wales and in the rest of the UK. I think that we have learned through this period ourselves.

So, the approach that we had to take during the pandemic, which was particularly difficult in social care and childcare and play, working with providers rather than 'doing to', all helped to contribute to the fact that most care in Wales, for children, is good care. So, despite the financial pressures, despite the recruitment challenges, despite the after-effects of COVID, which still linger, and the increased demand, the cost-of-living crisis, it's remarkable to be able to come here today and say that most care for children in Wales, across Wales, is good care.

There have been several things, I think, over that 10-year period, that have helped develop this. The first is the introduction of ratings. So, we introduced ratings for childcare and play back in 2019, and then ratings for our children's services came into effect in published form in 2025. But we spent two years working with silent ratings, because, you can imagine, you're a private provider, suddenly your services are going to be very publicly rated, there was a lot of nervousness in the system. And that two-year period that we were permitted to have to do silent ratings, to work with providers, to explain what it was going to be, was transformational.

And what happened, as well, we did a review a year in and we realised that some of the things we were doing were not necessarily the most helpful. And then we worked very closely with providers who helped us frame the ratings, helped us to describe what it meant to be 'excellent' and 'good'. So, the impact of that we're seeing. So, last year with silent ratings, 80 per cent of our children's services were rated 'good' or 'excellent'. We did a piece of work on the first seven months of ratings for this year, and we're on almost 90 per cent, just over 90 per cent. So, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell you in that sort of detail what the sector looked like, whereas now I can.

The other thing that's changed is the work we've done on our online systems. It sounds a bit anorak-y to get excited about your online system, but for Care Inspectorate Wales it's an absolute game changer. We've invested—. It started with my predecessors, so I can't claim credit for this, but we have invested heavily and, for us, this is a game changer. It's fair to say it is the envy of other inspectorates across the UK, who look at our system and say they wish they'd gone down a similar route.

So, it gives access, providers can contact us directly. Their notifications come in online, their concerns come in online, which makes it easy for them. And part of our work is, 'How can we make it as easy as possible for providers to tell us the things they're concerned with?' It's also easy for our inspectors then to look at each of these as they come in. We've got an improved online service directory, so that people can search. And what we're expecting to see, once we move on to a new Welsh Government customer relationship management platform, which we hope we'll start very successfully this afternoon, is that there's much more to come with this in terms of technology and what we're going to be doing with artificial intelligence. The 10 years feels as if it's gone very fast, but it's laid quite an interesting foundation.

I think the other thing that's happened in that 10 years, which has impacted on our sectors, is that we have moved from very much a purely regulatory focus, so, 'Regulation says this, have you done this?' to within the legislation, an improvement-focused, person-orientated form of inspectorate. So, it's about what matters to people, what changes for people. Yes, they may not have tick box x, but is it having any impact on the well-being outcomes of people? If no, is it something we need to get too concerned about? And that's especially important in a residential sector, because those are children's homes.

There's also been a lot of work around quality meetings. So, in our childcare and play work, not only do we have ratings, but midway through an inspection cycle, we will do quality meetings. We will meet with providers and say to them, 'What's working well? What needs to improve? Can we assist with this?' We did 154 of those last year, and we are looking to expand that into our children's services once ratings have bedded down for them.

There's also been the development of our interface with providers. So, sharing good practice. What does excellent look like? And with childcare and play, we started this series of practice worth sharing. And what that is is we see things that are good, we don't necessarily do massive evaluations, but we share them online on our systems and encourage other providers to look at them—does it work? Would it work for you? And I think about 1,600 providers attended those sessions last year. So, the good ratings are supported by, I think, the way that the inspectorate's changed.

One of the things we've done is we've had three strategic plans during that period, and we've been very clear in each of those—

This goes into other questions. Perhaps we could move on. I know Cefin's got a number of other questions, and in particular about the point—

I'm sorry. I get over excited about the state of—

No, no, no. That's fine. It was the main thing and I think you've given us five or six things underpinning the improvement, which is good to hear, but I know that Cefin has lots of other questions to get through.

Talking to people is at the heart of what we do on an inspection, but when you're doing an inspection, there are other things that you have to do and you have to check. You have to check staff records. Part of the ambition in the next strategic plan is how can we use, for example, AI to reduce some of the administrative burdens to clear more space to talk, because we have x inspectors, we have x number of services, we have a plan to see as many as we can, but nothing beats the conversations with the children who live in those homes, the staff who live in those homes, any family or visitors to that home. So, there's always a balance for us in making sure that we cross the threshold of enough services, so that we have a solid picture of what's taking place out there.

But I know myself, when you go to a service, the youngsters in particular are very keen to talk to you. During the pandemic, it was so funny, because we were doing this online, and they would do it like a YouTube, so they would have their system, and they're very keen to share, but I don't think you can ever talk too much to people. Anything we can do, which is part of the ambition for the next five years, to strip away things that can be done in different, alternative ways, so that when we're on site we can spend as much time hearing, listening.

In our local authority work, I think it's fair to say it's harder to get some of that engagement. We've tried various methods to make sure we're getting feedback from them into our services. But it's the aim, it's not—. I think we're doing as much as we can at the moment, but that voice of the child at the heart of everything we do is fundamental for us as an inspectorate.

Can I just ask—

I think the important thing is that we can—

Can I just—

Shall we take the supplementary, and you may want to respond to that as well?

Just on that one, that it's harder within local authorities to have that engagement sometimes, is it because a lot of services and people have gone online now, so it's harder to get in there? What's the reason?

I think sometimes, because we're talking to organisations that work with children over the years, some children, when they've been through the care system, want to talk about their experiences and want to share it, and others, frankly, just don't want to. I think we're mindful that you have to respect that, but it would always be part of the plan in every inspection to talk to children receiving services. And particularly in care homes it's not a problem, because they want to share.

Sorry, the opening question from Cefin was about how extensively inspectors talk to children now, and I know that you said you want to and it's central, but I don't think you actually set out how extensively inspectors do that now. I understand your answer about wanting to do more, freeing up space by using AI as an admin tool, so there's more time, but I didn't quite hear in the first or the second answer about how extensively now inspectors do that. I can understand objectively that it would improve the nature of the inspection to have more time, but how extensive is it now, which is what Cefin asked first off?

It would be in every inspection. There would never be an inspection in a children's care home that we didn't talk to the children, ever.

So, what you're acknowledging in the new strategic plan is that you need to do more of that talking again.

Yes, more time.

So, for example, if you think about the inspections of local authorities, we would speak to children during those inspections as well, but there would be lots of children in foster care, having adoption support, children on the child protection register. We won't be able to speak to all of those children; we will speak to some of them who agree to speak to us. I don't have the numbers here, but we do have breakdowns of that. But we want more of those. In children's homes it's much easier, because the child is normally there, and the child would be more amiable to speak with you, but when you're at a distance from the children during local authority inspections, you then have to find a different way of engaging with them, and children sometimes use their own will and decide not to speak to us, because they're busy doing other things, et cetera. So, it's around all of that. I want to assure the committee that, in all our inspections, we do speak to children, but we're always going to want to do more.

I think it would be useful for the committee to understand the nature of how many children you speak to, and if that's changed over the 10 years you've been in post, Gillian. Could you send a follow-up? Because I know you said you haven't got the figures to hand, but that would be useful to see. How the numbers and the volume or the percentage has changed over time as well.

It would be difficult to have figures 10 years ago.

It's what you have, in a way that's useful.

Fine. We can do that.

And it's part of your own strategic plan to improve. 

Yes, so we will have baselines.

Colleagues said that we should have reported 24 and not 26, because the third one was about contributing to an evaluation of RISCA, the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, which would have been led by policy colleagues, and that didn't happen, so we couldn't do that one.

The other one was about reviewing our website to provide easily accessible information. We did some of that, but we didn't complete it, for two reasons. One of them is that there are limitations on the Welsh Government platform, which mean we can't necessarily do some of the things that we wanted to see, and the other one was a capacity issue.

The strategic plan is a great platform to indicate what we hope to do, but it's like this year, things always happen in an inspectorate, which means that other things can sometimes take precedence. And so it's still on the radar, but we need support from Welsh Government IT, as well as the capacity within our own organisation. Now that ratings been have introduced and once we move onto the new Welsh Government platform this afternoon, that would be helpful.

The third one was to fully implement our quality assurance framework, and that was rated amber rather than green at the end. In fairness, I didn't think we could say we'd absolutely nailed that. Our quality assurance process has improved dramatically over these 10 years, but it's not where we would want it to be, partly because of some of the new work that's come in. And so those are the three that we didn't achieve.

Thank you. Just moving on, at the end of 2024, you had 237 staff working for your organisation. Does that number remain broadly the same now, and can you tell us where the main pinch points are in terms of staff capacity to inspect services for children and young people, and how do you deal with these pressures to ensure that you can carry out inspections in the best way possible?

Our current staffing is 252. Our agreed establishment is 282. You will remember that last year when I was here, we had been given some additional funding. And 96 per cent, 97 per cent of all our budget goes on staffing, so recruiting staff with the skills and competencies, including the language skills that we need, is quite a challenge. We're fishing in a very small pool. We want people to live as geographically close to the areas they're going to be working as possible. We prioritise daily our work. Particularly last year, when it was a very difficult period, we were probably 30 staff fewer than we had been the year before.

I think what's remarkable about that period is we still carried on almost the same number of inspections. In fact, our inspections for children's services increased, our inspections in childcare and play increased. That's thanks to a really passionate and dedicated staff. There's a constant juggling that goes on in terms of what we will and won't do. We decided that we wouldn't do some forms of inspection, because, for us, children's services—. Particularly with the changes that are coming on, we fast-track them. We make sure that we are responsive.

And it isn't just about inspection; the work of monitoring and regulating starts when we look at—. Every concern that comes is evaluated by an inspector, every notification that comes in. On the back of that, we decide should we bring an inspection forward, is there action that we need to take. It would be good to have a full staff complement. We've just finished another period of recruitment, but people don't arrive with us as fully baked inspectors—there's a six-month induction period, because you might be the best social worker, the best nurse, the best teacher, but inspection is a different skill, and so there's a long training period.

It's moving in the right direction. We were delighted to receive that additional funding. It has been a massive difference for our staff and is reflected in our staff survey scores, which are some of the best in Welsh Government, because staff recognised that we were doing what we could to bring in reinforcements. And so it's a constant juggling that we do daily.

I was just going to ask you about that additional funding as well—the £454,000 extra that you got. Could you just explain to the committee, what is that being used towards? Because just following on from your previous answer, I suppose it's an unsustainable position that you're in—that you're carrying out the same number of inspections with fewer staff. Recruitment is something we've looked at as a committee—we produced a report yesterday. I'd be interested as well in knowing how you set about recruiting more inspectors, because we know it's a challenge for you, it's a challenge for schools, FE colleges as well. How do you go about doing that?

There are several things. We use our staff quite extensively. I referred to our staff survey; we've just had 27 new inspectors this year. They can't quite believe how good an employer the Welsh Government is, how committed it is to training and development and making sure they've got the time to learn and be ready. It's interesting that, in the last round of recruitment, which we just finished yesterday, we filled the vacancies with a reserve list, which is not always the case. For many people, they regard becoming an inspector as almost the pinnacle of a career. They want to make a difference; they've made a difference through all their career and they want that opportunity to make a difference across Wales. But it is difficult, and we are, it feels, constantly recruiting, because by the nature of our work, we have a certain age profile for our staff and so they do tend to retire, I don't know why—they do tend to leave us eventually. So, we're constantly planning, constantly looking at how many have we got, who's coming in, and we try and recruit as quickly as possible. But the process can be slow.

And that extra money, then, if you could just tell us what exactly that is being spent on. 

Staffing. It's all new inspectors.

You said at the beginning that 96 per cent, or whatever, of your costs go to—

It'll all go to fill the vacant posts that we've carried for some time, because we've stripped everything else back. And IT.

Also consider that there have been very well-deserved pay awards over those years. Therefore, some of that money helps towards that also. You mentioned the number of inspectors; in fact, we've got more services now: if you look at the number of children's homes, it's increased by 163 per cent in the last 10 years. So, we're actually inspecting more services.

So will you need more inspectors, moving forward?

What we're trying to do with technology is to reduce the admin, reduce the work out of the system. We've got a pilot piece of work going on at the moment with a group inspectors who are very tech-savvy, who are looking at, working with other inspectorates who are doing this, what can we strip, what can we do differently, what can we use AI to help with, so that our inspectors are doing the work that only inspectors can do—the talking, the reviewing, the analysing. It's a very exciting year. We accept that budgets are always going to be finite. If you're asking would I turn away more money, then the answer would obviously be 'no', but budgets are finite. And so part of our commitment is that every penny that comes to us we want to make sure is well spent on the front line, on those inspections, on our front-of-house admin services, so that when people ring us, the phones are answered quickly and we can help the public at a time, let's face it, of great need for most people, when they're involved with us.

Diolch yn fawr.

We'll now move to questions from the tech-savvy Natasha Asghar.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, ladies. You've got a number of responsibilities, and one of them includes inspecting local authorities' social services. This time last year, you told the committee that most children were in good care. How would you describe the quality of children's social services in the worst-performing local authorities in Wales at this point in time? And just a sidebar as well, there: can you confirm if any authorities remain under the cloud of 'concern' or 'serious concern' categories? 

We don't have any local authorities who are in that category at the moment. I think how I would describe it in the authorities that are not performing as some of them are is inconsistent.

In what ways?

Practice can vary from local authority to local authority, as you'll be aware, and practice can also vary within a local authority. The best services will have very good quality assurance, very open, supportive cultures. What can happen with an authority under strain is that issues in terms of budget—. We're very conscious that children's services budgets in every local authority are under pressure, not just because of budget, but the rise in demand in some instances, and particularly of children with more complex needs.

It's good to see that, in the latest figures for care-experienced children, it seems to be stabilising or reducing, but what we have seen, and particularly over that 10-year period, is an increasing complexity of need, which is therefore very expensive, particularly if they're in residential care. Some of these children need a one-to-one arrangement, which is heavy in staff involvement, detailed therapeutic work, educational work. We're also in Wales trying to do radical change against that context and that background. Good practice, I would say, exists everywhere in every local authority, but it's inconsistent. If we could move together all the good practice that exists and replicate it identically in every local authority, it would be transformational.

That's why we spend so much time on improvement checks. We did six of those this year. We finished off the joint inspection of child protection arrangements, we've done the work in Gwynedd with helping partners with the mental health review, the follow-up to our child protection rapid review. So, there's a lot of work that's gone on, and the picture is a consistent one through all of that, with a very, I would say, committed workforce, very child-centered practice, with ongoing recruitment challenges—you referred to it yourself—everywhere.

It's the nature of children's services as well. It can be very specialised work. As I referred to about us, people are fishing in a small pool. At the moment, we don't have common salaries across Wales and terms and conditions, and so there's a movement that comes as well, which is very different. And there needs to be a significant investment in technology so that the age-old issue, which we talk about in every report, about information sharing can be improved.

Your own code of practice stipulates that you aim to carry out at least one review every five years. What is the evidence base for that being sufficient at present? Don't you feel that there's a high risk of poor local authority performance going unnoticed for long periods of time?

Well, we'll do a significant piece of work—like, this year, we've done the six improvement checks—and, in that five-year period, we will have done a significant piece of work in every local authority. But, in addition to that, there are quarterly and annual meetings that go on with the head of service, with the director of service. And there's a lot of intelligence out there: there's the Welsh Government's own checkpoint data, which, hopefully, will be published soon. So, our team, local authority team, if I asked them would they like to do more, they would say, 'Absolutely, yes, please', but, with the resource that we have for that, I think the view we took is that that was sufficient, with everything else we've got, plus, as well, our regulatory work. So, the work that we do in our children's team feeds into the work that our local authority team does. So, it's trying to find evidence that's not just dependent on us being in the service for three to five days.

So, the call to have one inspection every five years was yours?

They're not statutory—they come from within us.

Fine, okay. Are you confident that there is sufficient coverage of local authorities' children's services in your annual report?

That's a really good question. I suppose, if you're asking the question, I'm assuming you think it isn't.

You tell me.

The annual report was once about 100 pages and we've tried to strip it down, because—. As you can see, mine's a bit battered because it's a reference document for me. The point of an annual report is that people read it, and our sense was that 100 pages of dense text no-one reads. So, this is our attempt to say to local authorities—. I can't imagine it's high on many of the public's lists—'The chief inspectors publishing her annual report, let's read it'—but what we would hope is there's sufficient in there to flag the concerns. Because that's just one of the reports. So, all the individual reports that we do for individual local authorities, they're published. I would expect every local authority to be reading everybody else's reports. Because, if you want to learn, the issues are going to be the same across Wales—so, those six improvement checks, the joint inspection of child protection arrangements, the inspections of the regional adoption collaboratives we've done this year, the 17 fostering inspections over two years. Yes, this is a snapshot; this is, I hope, high-level information that gives a flavour. But there's a lot more sitting under that. For us, it's the balance between do we want something that's War and Peace, which, basically, no-one's going to read—. We try and summarise in the—sometimes we call it 'the foreword', sometimes we call it 'the call to action'. The reason we went for this 10-year profile this year is that things tend to not change dramatically year on year, and what we were trying to do is make an impact, so that you look at 10 years and think, 'There's a massive difference in some of these things.'

You mentioned local authorities, and you mentioned the wider public reading it, but do you feel that Welsh Government has given it enough attention as well?

Oh, yes. We have regular engagement with our policy colleagues. Our executive teams meet on a monthly basis now, is it?

Yes.

There are so many meetings with Social Care Wales and others. So, issues that emerge would never wait for the annual report; they would be communicated and talked about well in advance of this.

Thank you for that. Neil Foden, we all know, was convicted of 19 counts of sexual activity with a child while he was a headteacher. The subsequent child practice review in Gwynedd, published in November 2025, stipulates that there had been more than 50 missed opportunities—and I quote that number. This included nine referrals that had been made to children's services. So, I'd like to know, in terms of inspection prior to your 2026 report, when was the last time Gwynedd's children's services was inspected by CIW, and what were your findings?

So, I can't remember the specific date of the Gwynedd—. But if you look at the annual report on I think it's page 38, we refer to:

'We have identified key areas for improvement in local authority children's services, many of which will require partnership working.... To keep children safe, local authorities must apply safeguarding timescales and thresholds consistently, following the Wales Safeguarding Procedures. This will improve how they analyse risk and make decisions.'

Before that really distressing CPR came to light, as part of our thematic programme, we had already decided that we were going to do a review of part 5 of the Wales safeguarding procedures, which is how services react to allegations against people in authority. So, it was on our radar across Wales that this was an area that needed looking at.

So, were we aware of Neil Foden was doing in schools? Well, no, we weren't. But what we hope is that the learning that we have all had from this shocking CPR will help transform the—. Part of the problem is, you can have the best system in the world, but, if people don't follow it, this is what happens.

Would you be able to confirm to the committee when that inspection did last take place?

I will, yes.

And the findings?

Yes.

Partly because, in preparation for today, we weren't able to find easily from online sources when that had happened.

Yes, we'll do that.

It would be really helpful. I guess the challenge will be understanding when that was, what that looks like, and we may well have follow-up questions after we receive that, about what you were aware of and doing at the time.

Yes, and we've had those conversations, as you can imagine, within Care Inspectorate Wales, about who knew what and when. But I suspect—. If you look back at the 'Clywch' inquiry, the Ruthin School, these charismatic individuals with extraordinary powers to run their own separate systems—it's just tragic to see another one of those. Hopefully, the changes that are being introduced will help ensure that doesn't happen again—and the work around encouraging people to speak up, because that was one of the big issues there.

So, as Care Inspectorate Wales, what level of responsibility do you take for such high-profile failures in children's social care, then? I appreciate we don't have dates and everything; I'm not asking you to be a genie and try and remember something that you don't have the dates for in front of you. But I'd just like to know, and I'm sure the committee would like to know: what's your level of responsibility for cases like this?

Well, the local authority clearly has responsibility for what it does with referrals that come in. We monitor what's going on. At the moment, there's no system that I'm aware of for schools to keep a record of issues that happen within them. The problem is: how do you find out if people are not doing what they should do? So, referrals should have been followed up, but, if there's no paper trail, it's very difficult to know how you find that out. Hopefully, the processes that we're putting in place now, the regular meetings with the regional safeguarding boards, the duty that they will have to produce records on these section 5 issues, will help the oversight. But, with the best will in the world, people who act in this way, are they going to be found out by the inspectorate? I think it's difficult to give a categorical answer to that. You'd like to think that the systems would have been in place. You'd like to think that people would do what the Welsh safeguarding procedures say they should do. We've done a great deal of work since then. We've inspected, as you know, and the findings of the inspectorate are quite interesting. But it was a difficult day when this was published.

I can assure you it was a difficult day for all of us to have to read it as well. The overarching theme of Gwynedd's child practice review from the Foden case, which was published, as I mentioned, on 25 November, was that the voice of the child had not been listened to.

Yes.

That was also a feature of your improvement check follow-up visit to Bridgend County Borough Council children's services in June 2025. So, why isn't CIW's inspections regime having more of an impact to prevent such basic failures as not listening to the child's story to begin with?

Well, if this was a regulated service, we have powers. Our powers with a local authority don't include—. So, if a children's service wasn't doing what it needed to do on the regulation, it would be on our own enforcement pathway. What we do with local authorities is we highlight the things that we think they should be doing. We raise it. If it's at a serious enough level, then there is an intervention programme that comes in. But, if you looked across the whole of Wales, whether for any one local authority it would be possible to say that they would trigger that level it's difficult to know.

I don't understand why children are not consistently seen and heard. I don't understand why this isn't a central point. And I think our conclusion with Gwynedd is that there's a firm foundation, but inconsistent practice. And without them strengthening their quality assurance, without them securing procedural compliance and training, it's troubling what would happen to children's voices within the sector.

Okay. Do you feel that there is any evidence that suggests that CIW lacks clout, given the significant failings of social services? Because they keep happening over and over again. For example, two years ago, we asked you about the tragic case of Logan Mwangi in Bridgend, and your 2023 rapid review of child protection procedures in Wales that you were commissioned to undertake following the child practice review into his murder. I know the committee's had the quotation shared—

Yes. 

—but what's your view on that?

Can an inspector stop—on the Logan Mwangi case—an evil man doing terrible things? No. I think, with the best will in the world, what we can say is that the local authority has systems in place to do something about it. I think our role is to highlight, as we do, as we did with our rapid review of child protection arrangements, what needed to happen. And what we have seen since 2023 is an improvement. Challenges remain, but there's been notable progress after the rapid review: some standardisation of thresholds, and child-centred practice—positive steps, but more to be done. 

Okay, thanks. The committee has expressed significant concerns about a range of systematic issues relating to children's social services, perhaps the most significant being fragility of the workforce—I know you touched upon it in your response to my colleague Cefin Campbell—

Yes. 

—and, in turn, the impact it's had on the quality of services that the most vulnerable children and young people have received across Wales. We have pointed to significant vacancy rates—I know you touched upon that in your previous answer—and the negative impact that it can, ultimately, have when agency social workers are used, in terms of the high turnover of staff that we see who hold case responsibility for children and young people long term as well as short term. 

So, taking into account everything you've said to Cefin already, do you feel things are getting better or worse, in terms of the local authority children's workforce in place at the moment?

I think it's mixed across Wales. So, what is the current vacancy rate, agency rate? It's about 4.5 per cent, isn't it, from the December threshold data of agency workers across Wales. And it's difficult. It's such a specialised workforce. You're competing with a lot of other places. And there is a fundamental issue about the value that we place on social care generally. And so, if you want to attract people in, if you want people to say, 'I want to be a children's social care worker; this is my ambition', if we want people who are highly qualified and highly skilled to work in our children's homes, the sense of appreciating that social care does a phenomenal amount of good—. Because, sadly, tragically, we all spend a lot of time focusing on the things that go terribly wrong—and rightly so. But there are also lots and lots of examples of when things go really well as a result of the work local authorities do, as a result of the work that the social care workforce does.

But until we invest in social care—and that's across the piece—in terms of 'this is a career that's worth pursuing', having children encouraged to think about social care, and competing with the work that the NHS does—. We all know what the NHS does; it does fantastic work, and thank goodness for them. But until social care is seen as not a cinderella service, but an equal partner that does tremendous work for thousands of people across Wales every day, then I think we will struggle to recruit. We will struggle to encourage school leavers to think, 'I really want to be in this field.'

I know, Gillian, that, in our regulated children's homes, particularly children's homes, obviously—. We've talked earlier on—you mentioned this, Gillian—that the ratings we have tell us that most care is good care. But in those services where we are finding issues, one of those issues is around staffing. One of those issues is around the recruitment difficulties for managers. So, we're seeing more children's homes with challenges of recruiting managers, and maybe an increase in managers managing two homes and, of course, then, the increasing use of agency workers. And that has a knock-on effect around stability and perhaps leading to placement breakdown. So, it's so important, and I know it's a very important part of the Government's transformational programme, that the workforce issue is addressed head-on, because it's so important, for all services, including adult services. But, particularly for children's services, that continuity, the relationships with people, is so important for staffing.

So, would you say things are getting better or worse, in terms of the workforce?

I think it's as difficult as it's ever been, but with some bright rays of hope. So, Social Care Wales now has processes to provide training. So, I think, in some ways, it's better, but we're fishing in a pool with lots of other competing priorities, and so making social care the attractive one—I think that's the challenge for the next five years.

Thank you, Chair.

Can I just go back to a couple of the points that have come up from this set of questions? One was about the way in which annual reviews and inspections are used as an improvement function, not just assurance, but improvement, and the point that Natasha Asghar was making around the findings you've already made, what that means, and whether actually you describe talking to directors of services. Well, do you expect those directors of services not just to read their own inspection reviews, but do you expect busy directors of children's services to read other inspection reviews? Because Natasha Asghar pointed out some of the consistency, in where things have gone wrong, was about the loss of the voice of the child. And whilst you described inconsistent practice, that is a consistent thing, not just in Gwynedd, but in some of the other failings where you've had to undertake reviews. So, I'm trying to understand whether it's your expectation that directors of services do look at those other reviews, and it's about how you assure yourself that happens. And how is that part of the learning and constructive challenge and improvement that you would expect those senior leaders and their teams to undertake?

So, I would expect a busy director to read other people's reviews. When I ran services that were inspected, I read everybody's report, because I wanted to make sure that anything that was happening somewhere else—that I knew where I could go to to see what would happen.

We also have very good links with Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru, and they do a lot of work in this area to highlight good practice. So, there are ways out there to short-circuit it. And I know it's difficult because it is a very, very demanding and busy role, being the statutory director for social services.

So, how do you move from that expectation to the assurance that I'm sure you and others would want that learning is taking place? Not that it should, but that it is.

That's what I would expect our conversations with heads of service and heads of directors to be teasing out, because, as you pointed out, we're not there constantly. But in those quarterly and annual meetings, I would be expecting, if there were issues with areas that other people were dealing with, that we would be having those conversations with them. But I can't say to you, 'Here's the chart that shows that', but that's my expectation of what we are doing when we have those meetings. It is a constructive challenge session.

So, with Neil Foden, Natasha Asghar has already highlighted the nine referrals to children's services. And you made the point, fairly, that, essentially, Neil Foden was a charismatic alpha who got away with a great deal. I'm trying to understand, though, in terms of how that then comes back to the inspectorate and your oversight—is it normal for someone like that to have nine referrals to children's services and for there not to be a join-up? I mean, individually, there are judgments made, but when you see the totality of that and the way it's been set out—the fact that there were nine referrals around the same person and their practice that came into children's services—is it normal for there not to be a further look at that? Because some of this is not just the individual and the individual case, it's a cultural point, isn't it?

Very much so.

Do you simply accept that must be okay or do you have a look and say that something wider looks like it's taking place?

Yes.

Because that's one of the things we're trying to get out—the voice of the child being heard, but then the cultural side within any and every organisation with these responsibilities, and then how that comes to you in the inspectorate, and, again, how you assure yourself that those lessons are being learned—not just when something goes badly wrong that you highlight this is what's happened. How does that then lead to an improvement in experience and outcome for staff and the vulnerable children that you've got oversight for?

And those are the questions we've obviously been thinking and talking about ourselves. My understanding of a lot of it is that those referrals were not made in writing. So, finding that they had happened, the record-keeping—. As I understand from my reading, and I've only read the CPR in the same way as you have—. My understanding is that being able to find those nine referrals in a system—I'm not sure it was possible.

So, that's my point about—. You expect people to follow the safeguarding procedures. And I guess what this has raised for all of us is, what happens with these individuals who don't follow the proceedings and therefore there are no breadcrumbs for us to follow in terms of, 'How is this happening?' Because what we can't find out about is if people aren't prepared to say things—. We survey staff, we offer anonymous conversations with staff, we try and tease out as much as we can, because your point on culture is a really valuable one. How do you get beneath the skin of—? We can look at files—files give you a pretty good indication—but we also repeatedly, over the years, have asked staff to tell us what they're seeing, so, 'Tell us the good, tell us the bad.' And a lot of concerns that come to us do come to us anonymously. But if there's no record for us to follow and no-one is prepared to say anything within the authority, it's difficult to know how you unearth that. Thank goodness for that teacher who, in September 2023, finally took that child seriously. But when you read it, it's hard to understand how, on many occasions before that, all this wasn't taken in a very different way. 

It's a point about practice—

It's a question we agonise over, Vaughan.

Cefin.

Can I just follow up on that? When you look at the shocking report around Foden and the 50 missed opportunities, that would have happened over a long period of time. So, you can't remember when the inspection of Gwynedd was carried out—that's fine, you'll let us know at a later date—but I'm just wondering, when that report was published, you probably read that report and undertook some kind of self-analysis of what your engagement with Gwynedd has been over many, many years, and I assume that you spoke to Gwynedd about the findings and so on. So, were there any red flags for you over the many years you've been involved with Gwynedd? You mentioned the lack of a paper trail, for example—

For this—for Neil Foden?

Yes, for the Foden case. So, were those red flags addressed? Were they conveyed to Gwynedd by you, and do you believe that they did anything about that?

Well, we've just done an inspection, haven't we, in Gwynedd? And one of the things we did in response to this—

Following the report, yes. I'm talking about before that.

But we wouldn't know if there weren't reports available of a safeguarding incident. If there's nothing in the files, then we wouldn't know. My point is we rely on either there's something obvious in a file that makes us think, or the regional safeguarding board alerts us, or a member of staff alerts us, or a member of staff or a child says something. But, unless there's something tangible, the inspectorate can't know what's happening in a school, particularly as we're not the inspectorates of schools. How would we know that?

So, in hindsight, then, looking back, you don't think that you've missed any red flags at all? 

Well, this is what we've been having lots of conversations about. We did look through our engagement and whether there was anything there that should've alerted us, and we couldn't find anything, which was very difficult.

Yes. Okay.

I guess it goes back to the information the local authority have about where complaints are made, whether they're verbal or not, and your point about record-keeping. And this is not just about how many of the nine referrals to children's services were or weren't in writing. But then it's coming to this point about, in the joint inspection you've just published, how much of that do you then take forward? Because I've had a look at the joint inspection, and in the voice of the child, there's a framework that should work, but, again, your point isn't applied consistently. And then in the follow-up work about how you'll reassure yourself that—. Most people complain verbally when you talk about the group of people we're talking about. If they've got a complaint, they tend not to sit down and write an e-mail. As representatives, we tend to get things in e-mail, and they talk about a range of things that've happened. So, we're trying to understand, from the point around the culture that you've identified in the joint inspection, the point of view about the referrals—and we wouldn't expect them all to be made in writing, in any event—how does that then go back into the learning and improvement? Because, you know, the committee isn't interested in being able to identify an individual worker who's responsible. This is about how that culture changes, so that people can do a better job individually and collectively. Some of this is about how people affect how each other behaves in the workplace, and that's what appears to have gone so badly wrong here. The inconsistency has allowed what looks very obvious, in retrospect, to take place in plain sight, with no-one pointing to it for a very long period of time. 

We're trying to understand, from your point of view, whether you're happy that everything is contained that should be in the joint inspection report you've just done. What comes after that in terms of what you'll do, and then, not just for Gwynedd, but this point that Natasha Asghar was making as well about system-wide learning, to try to make sure that there's appropriate and constructive challenge within the system, rather than deference? Because that is what really appears to have happened. There's been deference to judgments and views of adults, and the voice of the child has been lost in that. And the record-keeping is a symptom of that.

So, going forward, the regional safeguarding board will be responsible for a register of section 5 complaints, which will have to be notified.

I think the other thing that's happening that is going to be very helpful is this review of governance of safeguarding that's taking place at the moment. Because some of the regional safeguarding boards have responsibility for oversight of partnership safeguarding. We have relationships with the National Independent Safeguarding Board, but the authority over who does what is a little fuzzy along the edges. So, we can't—. We certainly don't inspect regional safeguarding boards, and so the governance review that's going on will hopefully help identify some of the weaknesses in the system. Because if you read the Wales safeguarding procedures, they're a good set of procedures. They're being amended at the moment, in light of some of this, but they're good procedures.

I guess what we're wrestling with is what do we do when people don't follow the processes, and how we can identify them. We've had lots of discussion over the past few months with Gwynedd, with the people there. I guess if those on the ground in north Wales didn't know about this, it's difficult to know how the inspectorate can know about it. That's one of the issues that we're wrestling with. There is a duty, as you know, on everyone around safeguarding, to speak up, to do something about it, and particularly if you're in these positions of responsibility. So, it is quite difficult to understand how these things happened and were reported, and action didn't take place over that, what was it, four-year period. It's just difficult to understand.

I'm sure this and a future committee will be interested in the gap between procedure and actual practice—

Yes. 

—and how that gap is closed. I want to talk about improvement activity because that's got to be the focus: to improve the service for the people that the service is responsible to and for, as well as for the staff, who I understand are under real pressure. We're going to move on to questions from Russell George in the next set.

Thanks, Chair. Good morning. Of course, from April of last year, homes inspected in Wales should have received a rating. We know that most are legally required to display that rating, apart from services for children under 18, which are exempt. You explained this and went into some detail on this in your opening remarks. I wonder if you could expand on how this is working to date, in terms of whether the silent ratings are having less of an impact on the quality of services for children.

Well, we're now in published ratings, of course. Hooray. Did you want to pick that up?

Yes. We feel that the ratings are making a difference because we're seeing improvements. Now, when we were in the silent rating phase, which we were still in when this report was published, and I think—. Let me just check what the—. I think it was 78 per cent. Is that right, Gillian?

Seventy-eight per cent.

Seventy-eight per cent of the ratings were 'good' or 'excellent'. Just to be clear, when we're giving ratings, we don't give one rating for the whole service. We give a rating for each of the themes of the inspection. For care homes, that's well-being, so what's the well-being of the children like; the leadership and management; the environment; and the care and support. So, they get four ratings. When we say 78 per cent of all those ratings we gave were 'good' or 'excellent' in this year of the report we're talking about, in the first seven months of the published ratings, that is now at 90 per cent.

The thing to say there is that when we did the silent ratings, we had an independent evaluation of the ratings, and that came back and told us about things that we needed to improve. We worked very much with the sector to look at our approach, what needed to change, and we made those changes. So, some of those changes—. For example, in the silent ratings, we had what I would like to call 'limiters'. For example, if someone was to get a 'poor' in care and support, they automatically also got a 'poor' in well-being. Sometimes, the inspector would say—. Or if they got 'needs improvement' in environment, they would automatically get 'needs improvement' in well-being. Our inspectors often said to us, 'Well, although the environment needs to improve, actually, the well-being in this service is very good', so therefore we took away some of those limiters.

So, the improvement to that 90 per cent, some of that will be probably because of that. But we are seeing improvement, and I think the place where you could see it most is around the priority action notices and areas for improvement. We can see that when we're inspecting services, if we find issues that are having an impact or are putting at risk outcomes for children, we will identify those as an area for improvement. If they're not significant, they're an area for improvement. If they are significant, we will raise them as an area they have to take priority action on, and will issue a priority action notice.

When you look at those, the difference between 2023 and 2024, we can see that we are getting fewer areas for improvement and fewer priority action notices issued.

I think I've got this right. The 78 per cent was for the year—

The silent ratings. 

The silent ratings, and the 90 per cent—

The 90 per cent is from April 2025 until the first seven months of that financial year. 

Okay, so you'd say that to demonstrate the—

To demonstrate there has been improvement. Some of that will be because of the changes that we made, but I'm confident that the ratings are helping to improve and our inspections are improving because we're seeing that, I think it's fair to say, in the areas for improvement and the priority action notices that we're having to identify on inspection.

Okay, I understand that. Then, of the 78 per cent you're referring to, that means, obviously, 22 per cent aren't in those ratings, and they're going to be in the 'need for improvement' or 'poor'. That's quite sizable as well because if you're rating—. If you're inspecting about 200 settings, then that's quite a high percentage of numbers as well, I suppose, in that sense. What’s your comment on that?

You've got to bear in mind that that 78 per cent of the ratings is 78 per cent of all the ratings, so four ratings per service. 

Yes. 

So, you could have a service that has a ‘needs improvement’ but also has a ‘good’. So, the 22 per cent doesn't mean that 22 per cent of the 201 had ‘needs improvement’ across the board. They might have had one ‘needs improvement’ but well-being might have been ‘very good’, if that makes sense. 

Yes, but 22 per cent would be in the 'improvement' or 'poor' categories. 

Yes, would have 'needs improvement' or 'poor'.

And if you look at the most recent figures for December, there were 12 ratings that required significant improvement. 

Yes, of the 200.

Of the 110 care homes, at least one had an 'excellent', only 12 ratings were 'requires significant improvement'. 'Requires improvement' is a slightly different category, and so 2.2 per cent required significant improvement and 7.9 per cent required some improvement.

What I would say is our view is that care in care homes in Wales for children is generally good. But do we get care homes where you have issues? Yes, we do. And where we find those issues, we do highlight those areas for improvement. If we highlight an area for improvement, we go back earlier. So, normally our routine inspections are 18 months apart, but if we issue an area for improvement or we identify an area for improvement, we're going back within 12 months to make sure those improvements are made. If we issue a priority action notice, we're going back within six months to make sure those improvements are made. And very many services will improve in that period of time. If they don't, then we will refer them to our securing improvement and enforcement panel, and then we'll be into the territory of taking statutory action.

So, what I would say is to give you assurance that we believe that most care is good care, but there will be times when care is not as it should be.

Okay, I've got it, yes. I’ll move on to another question. I'm just reading from your report and you say that you're

'not currently seeing any significant shift in registration trends towards "not-for-profit" provision',

and that of the 43 new services, 58 per cent were private providers. So, I'm looking really for your reflections on that, taking into account the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025 and what that requires and how that's moving forward from April 2026. What are your reflections on that, particularly in regards to, I suppose, how closely you're sharing that data with the Government and how likely it is that we'll see a shortage of placements in the near future?

Well, no doubt the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act comes into force on 1 April 2026. I know this committee's had the two reports from the Minister, and those reports show that there hasn't been a significant shift towards the not for profit. In fact, I looked up these figures yesterday, and as of yesterday we now have 391 care homes. That was 350 in March 2025. So, we're still seeing lots of services registering, and of those 391 there were 303, which is 77.6 per cent, that were for profit, and 88, or 22.5 per cent, that were not for profit. So, those are the latest figures as of yesterday.

So, we're not seeing that shift. One might say that's not surprising, because the law doesn't come into effect until 1 April 2026. At that point—. So, for every registration that we have, we say to the provider now, and we have been doing this since we were aware that the Act was coming into force, we've said to them, 'Are you aware of the provisions of the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act? Do you understand that after 1 April—?' And we would tell them about the timelines that are in the transition. But many of them choose to continue. Now, we're not aware—. And we can't refuse them. We can't refuse them now on the basis that they're for profit. From 1 April 2026, they will have to be one of the four approved models in order for us to register them.

But I guess when we were discussing this last year, about the transition period, the transition period, as far as I can remember, was shorter at that point than it is now. So, there's a slightly longer transition period to April 2030. At that point, no child will be able to be placed in a for-profit service unless the Minister approves it under the supplementary application processes. All I can say is that I don't know for certain if those providers are thinking, 'We will be for profit until that point and then move over.' So, it might not be surprising that the shift hasn't happened quite yet, but, at the same time, I think the transition period was needed, because I would worry if it was shorter that we would end up with a shortage of places. 

So, how likely is it going to be that there will be a shortage of placements in the near future? 

Well, I don't have a crystal ball to know how quickly local authorities—. We know local authorities have got commissioning plans to develop their own services, and we are seeing more local authorities doing that. But developing, building and/or acquiring and refitting a building to become a children's home takes time and resources, so it's very difficult to say whether that transition will—. We certainly will have to see a shift from April 2026, because no new provider will be able to register unless they are not for profit, and I would hope that, from that point on, you would start to see a much quicker shift towards not for profit. But it's very difficult to determine whether it will be there on time, and I suspect that, perhaps, if that doesn't happen, the supplemental application process will have to be used.

Okay, thank you. We know that care-experienced children are at higher risk of going missing or exploitation. I wonder what your take is on the notifiable events recorded in the annual report, which show 2,655 cases where there was an unexplained absence of a child from their placement, or a child went missing. I wonder what your thoughts and reflections are on that.

Any notification that we get of a child going missing we take very seriously, and this is an issue we've talked about previously in terms of what we are receiving notifications about. So, 102 of our homes submitted five notifications or fewer, and what we do is, where there is a home with a significant number of notifications, we look at it. We have a look at the quality of service and what's happening there, and what we've been satisfied of is—. For example, I've got one here: there were four children and 79 missing notifications. One of them was subject to child sexual exploitation, and there was a multi-agency response for every period that children were going missing. So, any that have a higher number of notifications, we will go in, we'll look at the ratings, we'll look at what the notification is about and whether there was appropriate action taken.

Part of the problem is that a significant number of these notifications are children who have returned to the home late. A lot of work has gone on. There was a summit in 2017, a lot of work happened after that, and 2024. What children say is they feel quite stigmatised by being described as 'missing' when they are late for a curfew. And if you think, in a family that lives around here, if your child goes missing, you wouldn't call the police if your child was an hour late from their curfew. So, there's quite a tension between the description and what we categorise as a missing child and one that would cause red flags. Clearly, for any child under 11, there's a whole protocol that takes place.

But it's more important that we try and work out what causes this. Some of this, as we've seen from the work we've done with a high number of notifications, is the placement isn't a suitable placement and the child is moved on to somewhere that's more suitable to cater for their specific needs. And it's how the child is dealt with when they return. There are some very good return interviews that take place. Some police forces have developed this Philomena protocol, which is a conversation between the carer, the social worker and the child to try and unpick, 'Well, what is this, why are you missing, where were you, what happened?' That's caused a reduction of a third in care-experienced children going missing, but it's not widespread, and that could be quite helpful. The Welsh Government are looking at the moment at the definition. It's quite complicated because, on the one hand, you do want to make sure that every child, whom you don't know where they are, is appropriately looked at—

So, what's the Welsh Government looking at in terms of changing the definition?

Well, to try and clarify the definition because, at the moment, what we've seen is that some providers will, even before they've done some of the legwork, phone the police, and say, 'This child has gone missing', even though they may know that the child's at their family home, or the child is with his girlfriend. And so, that can distort, quite significantly, the number of children who would be missing in the sense that we would be concerned about, rather than being an hour after their curfew. And when children are saying—

And what should the definition be, then? If the Welsh Government are looking at this, what would be your opinion?

Well, I'm hoping that the Welsh Government will come up with something that we can—. We will help feed into it. But it's really difficult. And so, that's why, instead of concentrating on, 'Oh gosh, the numbers', what we look at is, 'Okay, any care home that has a high level of notifications, let's unpick some of that. Let's see what is the real issue. Is this just a curfew or is there a serious issue about placement?' And from the work we've done, I'm satisfied that, if it's a serious issue relating to the child, then work has gone on. But there are ways that a conversation with a child—. There must be nothing worse than being known as a 'misper'; these are children and they're pushing boundaries and they want to stay out an hour later in the park, and they don't want the care home to go and visit a new child's family to make sure that this is an appropriate place for them to visit. I think it's a really complex issue. But when you hear the voices of children about this, this is something that creates a lot of tension, and them feeling different, rather than, 'Yes, I do want to stay out later than nine o'clock, and this is where I'm at'. And so, maybe the definition needs to be something around the basis of, 'Is it known where the child is? How late was the child returning? Have you had a conversation?', because the figures can seem frightening unless you do the unpicking.

I think the thing is, for us, what you don't want is for the serious things to get lost in the less serious things. So, I know that, in the 'Children on the Margins' report, there was a recommendation around data for children going missing. One of the things that we're doing, because we want to be able to identify this ourselves, is we're making a change to how we collect that information and to ask more pointed questions, which they have to tell us, 'Did you know where the child was? How long was the child missing?', so that we can give a bit more nuanced information from that. You know, that 2,949, it's not very helpful if we can't say, 'And of that number, this is the number that, actually, we think are the more serious ones.' That's work that we're currently doing. Unfortunately, for next year's report, obviously, it won't be place, but we're hoping, in time, that that will then give us more nuanced information around this.

I think Russell has a final area of questioning on deprivation of liberty orders.

I do, but I was just looking at you to see if there's time.

There will be time. We have two more questions and then I have a very short question right at the end.

Right. Okay. You say that you received 50 notifications in 2024-25 about children living in care with a deprivation of liberty order from the High Court, compared to 16 in 2023-24. You also say that this is due to better reporting, rather than an increase in cases. Are you able to give some further—obviously, without the detail of the children—information about those 50 cases, about, perhaps, the children's age profile, the types of settings where they've lived, and whether they are from children's homes or whether they're from residential care?

It would always be children's care homes, because fostering services don't have to tell us, and no-one has a statutory duty to tell us. So, in February 2024, we wrote to providers to say, 'Please can you tell us if you have a child in your service with a deprivation of liberty order, because you need to make sure that you're putting appropriate systems in place and that you're looking at the impact on other children in that home?' So, the spike was, following the February notification, more care homes told us that they had a child with a deprivation of liberty order. We know about those 50. I don't have the up-to-date details. They're only in children's care homes and we wouldn't have any more details than that, partly because no-one has to tell us. So, we keep the information, because we think it's important information that might have a bearing on what happens in that home, but I can't categorically say that those are all the deprivation of liberty orders that are made on children in care homes.

And about the age profile of the children who—

We wouldn't know.

Okay. Should you know?

We're very careful what information we keep about individual children on our systems. We regulate the service, not the child, and so, no, I don't think we should know. What is useful to know is,'There is a child in this care home with a deprivation of liberty order and what are you doing to support their child?' That's what's important, always.

And we would follow that as a live inquiry in that inspection, then. We would look at that particularly in that inspection, how that was managed.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you. That may be something for us to follow up afterwards. We've now got some questions from Carolyn Thomas.

Thank you, Chair. I'll just ask some questions about childcare provision. The report shows a rise in full day-care places over the past 10 years from nearly 28,000 in 2015 to 44,000 now in 2025. Could you tell me what the impact has been on providers and on the inspectorate of changes needed to continue to meet the demands for delivering free childcare places? At the moment, we've got the roll-out of Flying Start to all two-year-olds, and there is a call to have free childcare in Wales from nine months of age as well. How realistic is it for the sector to continue developing capacity for childcare places at this pace?

It's been a fascinating development, and it seems very much about parent choice. So, there are almost 1,000 fewer childminders now than there were 10 years ago. The main reason people leave childminding is it tends to be that they retire, or they've had young children and their children are older, and they've decided they want to do something different. We also have worked quite hard to make sure our register is as clean as it can be. So, we had a significant number of childminders who had voluntarily suspended, which means they weren't offering services, but they were on our systems. So, we work through those now on a regular basis to make sure that these are real numbers that correspond with what's out there. So, it's a much more accurate picture, I think, of childminding, but the jump has been enormous, hasn't it?

So, in day care back in 2015, there were 27,500 places. As of 31 March, there were just over 44,000. Some of that, I think, is driven by parents quite liking the bigger facility, they like what's on offer, they like a very structured approach. Certainly, what we've not seen is any diminution in quality in that increasing. So, I think, last year, 80 per cent of ratings for our childcare and play services were 'good' and 'excellent'.

As you say, many people might go into childcare because they can do it around the children, but they have to make sure they've got insurance, follow certain standards, qualifications, et cetera, to make sure the provision is up to the right standard for the children. But it's not as simple or as easy as people might expect. But, do you have concerns there, going forward, which was my initial question, that we can meet the demands of people's hopes and expectations of the roll-out that childcare can be there for children from nine months of age, maybe, in the future?

I think, as with all these things, it's the pace at which this is done, because the sector has clearly embraced quite a significant shift and change, with improving quality over that period. So, I think, in any change that extends it, it's how fast that roll-out needs to happen. As with other parts that we've talked about today, recruitment, retention of staff is an issue for childcare and play in the same way it is anywhere else. So, hopefully, well managed and well resourced, the sector should be able to accommodate it.

Okay. So, hopefully, if it can be well funded and they can get decent pay, terms and conditions, we might be able to recruit.

Yes, and there are some extraordinarily good providers out there.

Can I just clarify that you're comfortable that the inspectorate has managed to successfully undertake your oversight given that, in your term as chief inspector, there's been a more than 50 per cent increase in the volume in the sector? We talked about some of the challenges of the inspectorate. You're comfortable you're doing a good job of that regulatory oversight from CIW's point of view? 

I am. In fact, I have been really impressed at how we have developed our work with childcare and play. I think they were the first to introduce ratings, and that was an extraordinary period. We worked jointly with Estyn for services that we were—unbelievably—separately inspecting several years ago, and so that's been very encouraging. With the provider meetings, the quality, the introduction of quality meetings, which are this opportunity midway through cycle to look at what needs to be improved, I think what's really encouraging is the appetite towards excellence. When we introduced ratings in 2019, I remember one provider talked about how they were aiming to be 'adequate'. You never hear that now. I think the fact that ratings have been there mean that there's a clear path. They understand what 'excellent' looks like, what 'good' looks like, and some services get really upset if they get four 'goods'. Four 'goods' and they get upset. And then when you have services with four 'excellents', some of them have t-shirts printed: 'We are excellent'. It's been so encouraging to watch the pride that the sector takes. And yes, I think the work we've done in childcare and play, we're satisfied, between our concerns process, our notification process, our quality meetings, that this is a very good overview of what childcare and play looks like in Wales. 

It's very interesting. I started off my volunteering on a playgroup committee 20 years ago and, as a councillor, the first task and finish group I set up was on early years provision, so it's really interesting seeing the change in development over the years.

Your annual report says you received report of 481 concerns about childcare in 2024-25, and you assessed 4 per cent of these to have a potential major impact on children, meaning you had to carry out urgent inspections to check children were appropriately safeguarded—

Yes.

—or to convening an enforcement panel to decide if urgent action, such as suspension, was needed. So, what sort of issues did these involve, and was there any theme or pattern to them? 

I would say in terms of our suspensions—I don't have the figures on this; I'm talking to you anecdotally of what I see happening on a day-to-day basis—most suspensions are due to us finding out about something—for example, perhaps somebody in the household has been accused of something that we wouldn't want children to be around if that were to be true. Therefore, if the police are investigating that particular incident, we would suspend that childminder while that investigation is ongoing. So, for the suspensions, it's mostly incidents such as that.

Okay. 

So, they're quite a small in number, aren't they? 

Yes.

Yes.

So, of the 481 concerns, it's only 18 or 19 that require action. But is there a pattern, beyond your explanation on suspensions, about the remainder of those? Because it's a fairly small number, I expect there to be an understanding about what that looks like. Are there individual concerns, or is there a wider theme?

It's usually to do with leadership and management. So, of those concerns that we had in, 119 of those resulted in the inspection being brought forward. And so it tends to be an individual staff member—something has happened. But there's no discernible pattern in terms of, 'If only this was done, this would change'. It tends to be very much of that service, something that's happened in that area. But there's nothing that I would say, 'If we did this, this would change'.

If one in four, essentially, of the concerns raised lead to an inspection being brought forward, and the biggest theme is leadership and management, I think that's a relevant issue for the committee to be aware of, and how that then features not just in your work on the regulated review, but, again, going back to points earlier about what improvement looks like. 

But, even if we bring an inspection forward, it doesn't necessarily mean that we find there's an issue in the service. It's about our preventative supervisory role to make sure that there's nothing there. And so, even though we bring those inspections forward, we might find that, actually, this is a good service.

Carolyn, was there anything else you wanted to say in your set of questions on childcare?

No, no, it's fine, thanks.

Okay. There is a final question, but I think we'll ask you to cover this in writing. It's actually your view on challenges facing Care Inspectorate Wales and what you'd want the next Government, in the next Senedd, to do to ensure the provision of quality services for children and young people, and what that means about outcomes. But, to be fair, I don't think we can ask you to give an answer in 30 seconds, so we will write to you. There are a couple of points where I think you offered to give information, and I think the committee said they'd be interested, so we'll write to confirm what those are. And we'll look forward to a written response to that last question, which we'll put in the letter as well, so there's no challenge about it. You will, of course, be sent a transcript, as usual. You're used to this now, Gillian—10 years as the chief inspector, and time before that as well. Thank you both for coming in today and for answering the questions. We will write to you, and look forward to hearing from you in due course. Many thanks.

Thank you very much.

I do have the Gwynedd details now, but I'll put them in a letter to you.

Great. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for your interest in our work. We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

We're now on to item 3 on the agenda. These are papers to note. They're listed at 3.1 to 3.8 in the public papers pack. There are eight papers to note today; full details are set out. Are Members content to note the papers? Thank you. I note that you are.

Now, under item four, a motion under Standing Order 17.42(ix) to exclude the public for the remainder of today's meeting. Are Members content? Yes, you are. Thank you very much. We can now move into private session.