Human rights

James EvansConservative

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Okay. Thank you. Moving on to another area now, which is pupil absence, pupil absence has been stable for the last five years—about 94 per cent-ish. It's gone down now, to 88 per cent. The Welsh Government announced measures to try and address absenteeism in schools. Do you think they're going to…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Rocio Cifuentes

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Yes. And we also heard the same from the Minister that this shouldn't be happening, but it is happening. And when my office gets involved, we can help to usually negotiate a successful outcome, but it shouldn't take my office getting involved, and, obviously, we physically wouldn't be able to get…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

James EvansConservative

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Yes. On your casework, we're getting evidence from families who say they need to have assessments—I mentioned it to the education Minister—so they can actually can get any support put in place at all from the school. Is that something you're seeing coming through in casework a lot, because the…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Rocio Cifuentes

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

This continues to be one of our highest areas of casework and we continue to see inconsistencies in the interpretation of the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018. That same message was one of the conclusions of the Estyn piece of work on this. We are on the ALN…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

James EvansConservative

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

One of the questions I do have—and you mentioned it earlier—is about additional learning needs. One of your aims for the office and priorities was about the effectiveness and the consistency of the application of the new ALN reforms. So, I'm just interested to know how do you think it's going.

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Rachel Thomas

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

And just to clarify, we've seen an overarching high-level, quite short document that's a practice framework that references the names of the standards that they intend to develop, but we haven't seen any detail of the individual standards themselves, which we had expected to have seen this autumn.…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Rocio Cifuentes

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

I first met—. Yes, I've had many meetings with officials about this topic. I first met with the individual who's leading on the new national practice standards, Anthony Douglas, when I first came into the role, and we met with him again in August. So, we are kept very up to date on progress in this…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Thank you. We were first made aware back in September by the Deputy Minister for Social Services that work was firmly under way to co-produce and develop five new national standards of practice for children in respect of child inclusive practice, manageable workloads, children who go missing and…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Rocio Cifuentes

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Yes. I met with Social Care Wales last week, and they updated me on their work on this issue. I've also met and heard directly from children and young people in children's homes who have told me about really high numbers of social workers that they've had, so a really high turnover, which is clearly…

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Ken SkatesLabour

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Thank you. There are widespread concerns about children's social care workforce constraints and real pressures on the existing workforce. Recruitment is incredibly difficult at the moment and there's widespread use of agency staff. Is this a matter that you're involved in? Are you working with the…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Rocio Cifuentes

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Yes, we are very aware and very involved in these conversations. We have been approached by children's home providers over the summer who continue to express their concerns about the impact on their own operating models. We have raised and shared concerns with Government about a smooth transition…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record

Ken SkatesLabour

29 November 2023, Children, Young People, and Education Committee

Scrutiny of Children's Commissioner for Wales Annual Report 2022-23

Thank you. Just moving on to children who are looked after, and the Government's pledge to remove profit from the system, are you confident that there are robust transition plans in place for children living in independent placements? Are you aware of stakeholder concerns about the progress and…

Tagged from the title of its item or question: “Children's Commissioner”Official Record