Radical reforms to the care system in Wales are needed to address a “shocking” rise in the number of looked after children, a Welsh parliament committee has concluded.
The committee said the number of children in care was up by almost 23% since 2013 while at the same time there were shortages of qualified social workers.
Members of the Senedd’s children, young people and education committee said a series of radical reforms were needed to address the situation and strengthen the legal rights of young people in care.
Their report alluded to the case of Logan Mwangi, the five-year-old boy murdered by his mother, her partner and his stepson. Logan was killed shortly after the stepson, Craig Mulligan, moved into the family home after being in care five days before the killing, in a decision likened by prosecutors to throwing a lit match into a powder keg.
The committee’s report said managing risk was a “very difficult part of social workers’ jobs”. It added: “Social workers are under pressure to protect children, and they can get a lot of strong criticism if it is seen that they aren’t stepping in to remove a child from their birth parents early enough.”
According to the report, there are many more children in care in Wales compared with England – 112 per 10,000 in Wales compared with 70 in England. In one of the south Wales valley areas – Torfaen, which includes the towns of Pontypool and Blaenavon – there are 209 per 10,000.
Jayne Bryant, the chair of the committee, said during an inquiry on children in care it had heard from many who were being let down. Many said they felt ignored and powerless, with no say in the decisions that affected their lives.
She said: “Now is the time for action. These young people desperately need more support and the guarantee that support will be there for them by making it their legal right to access it.”
The committee found that 50% of staff in 2022 in children’s social care were agency workers – and there were 639 vacancies for social care staff.
It also discovered that fewer than one in five children will achieve five or more A* to C grades at GCSE, including English/Welsh and maths and one in four “care-experienced children” will be homeless at the age of 18. About a quarter of care experienced parents will have had at least one of their own children removed.
The committee is calling for more legal responsibilities to be placed on the local authorities and other public bodies that act as parents to these young people.
It is asking for a law that will require councils to calculate the maximum number of caseloads a children’s care social worker can safely manage.
A Welsh government spokesperson said: “We are working with care-experienced children and young people to radically reform services to provide the very best support and protection, and ensure they thrive when leaving care.”
