Should profit be removed from foster care?

Rowan Gray says the whole care system needs a 'massive change'

A care leaver said it was a "disgrace" companies profited from children in care.

But Rowan Gray, 23, from Carmarthenshire, also said he was concerned Welsh government plans to remove profit from residential and foster care could cause problems for young people.

A Senedd committee said there were significant challenges with the Health and Social Care (Wales) Bill.

The Welsh government said it would respond in due course.

Rowan was just six when he moved into foster care and he spent time in about seven different placements during in his time in care.

“I hated it. I hated having to move with all my stuff in black bags,” he said.

He now volunteers for Voices from Care Cymru (VfCC), a charity that has been campaigning to remove profit from the care of children and young people.

He, and other young people from VfCC, gave evidence to the Health and Social Care committee, which published a report on Thursday scrutinising the bill.

“I’m disgraced by the whole system. One thing I’ve always said is I don’t want to feel like a number that is earning companies money, I don’t want to feel that way,” Rowan said.

“Children in care want to be looked after by people who treat them as if they were their own.

“They don’t want to be advertised with a price tag.”

However, Rowan also described his biggest concern: “Companies [could] just pack up and go elsewhere because they are no longer able to profit off us and that’s going to cause of lot of problems for all the kids that are being looked after by these different companies."

Like Rowan, the Health and Social Care Committee supported the idea of removing profit from care but said the Welsh government needed to do much more to make it work.

Wales is the first country in the UK with plans to remove profit from both residential and foster care for children.

When children are taken into care, councils can commission private residential or foster carers to look after them.

Rowan was one of four young people from Voices from Care Cymru that gave evidence to the committee

There are about 7,210 children who are in the care of Welsh councils - a rise of 26% since 2014.

Last year, 116 per 10,000 children were in care in Wales compared with 71 per 10,000 in England.

The committee said councils, which have the duty to look after those children, needed a clear commitment for funding for at least the next five years.

It also said companies urgently needed a detailed offer of guidance and support from the Welsh government if they were to be persuaded to move to not-for-profit models.

Without those assurances, the committee said it feared the impact of change would be felt at its worse by the most vulnerable.

It made 26 recommendations in total.

The chairman of the committee, Russell George MS, said while there was majority support for the bill, the reality of transition was not straightforward.

He said the report highlighted the concerns of those “working in a system which was already under pressure” as well as young people who know what it is like to need help.

“They told us clearly what they want – to be treated with respect, to remain close to people they know, and to be with people who care for them as one of their own," he said.

"This must not be compromised."

Mr George added: “Whilst the ambition is clear, the Welsh government’s plan for making it work is not.”

Previously, the minister for social care, Dawn Bowden MS, told BBC Wales the private sector could make up to 23% in profit and that young people in care had been “marketized”.

She also said that the cost of residential care alone could rise to nearly £1bn within 10 years if nothing changed.

The cost of residential care has risen to £200m this year, from £65m in 2017-18.

In a statement, the Welsh government said: “Wales is the first part of the UK to introduce legislation to remove private profit from the care of looked-after children as part of our ambition to radically transform children’s services in Wales.

“We thank the committee for this report and will respond in due course.”