The Children & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee are scheduled to meet to discuss foster care in Torfaen, review an action sheet, and consider an item for the next meeting. The meeting will be held as a hybrid (multi-location) meeting at the Council Chamber, Civic Centre, Pontypool and via Microsoft Teams. The meeting is scheduled to be live streamed and can be viewed via the TCBC Webcasting.

Foster Care

The committee are scheduled to discuss a report about the activities that will be developed to improve the Foster Care service and expand the number of in-house foster care provisions.

The report pack includes information about:

• Current foster care provision, including performance metrics over a three-year period and targets.
• A summary of an external inspection by Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW).
• Recommendations and an action/improvement plan to address them.
• How the proposals for improvement will address the areas identified.
• Potential challenges in addressing the areas for improvement.
• Financial context.

The report notes that the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 24 March 2025. According to the report, Wales is the first UK nation to legislate the end of private profit in children's residential and foster care. The report states that care of Children Looked After in Wales will only be provided by the public sector, charitable or not for profit organisations in the future. New placements in 'restricted services' which include for-profit residential homes, secure accommodation and fostering providers, will not be permitted, other than in exceptional circumstances from April 2030.

The report also mentions the council's County Plan Delivery Programme, which includes the following activities:

• Reviewing and developing a broad range of provision/accommodation for children looked after whose needs cannot be met in foster care in order to meet our sufficiency duty and reduce profit in care.
• Ensuring that at least 86% of the children we look after are placed with Local Authority Foster Carers by March 2026.
• Safely reducing the number of children we look after to achieve our ambition to have a rate equal to or lower than the national average of 225 children/ young people by 2028/29.
• Reducing the number of children and young people placed in residential care whose needs would be best met within an alternative placement.

According to the report, the AIG¹ Programme Board is monitoring progress against key objectives, including reducing the number of children in care, increasing step downs, and increasing the number of in-house foster carers.

The report states that the council is in the discovery phase of a project around Foster Carer Recruitment and Retention. The aim is to make fostering for Torfaen County Borough Council more attractive to prospective foster carers and to ensure that the best possible 'offer' is available to approved foster carers. Potential areas for improvement include council tax reductions, discounted leisure opportunities and reward payments.

The report also provides information on the different types of carers supported by the Placement Team, including:

• Mainstream foster carers: Carers who are not related to the children/young people they care for.
• Kinship/Connected Person's foster carers: Carers who are approved to care for relatives or other adults who have a connection to the child.
• Special Guardians: Individuals who assume long-term legal responsibility for a child with whom they already share a relationship.
• Private Fostering: Occurs when a child is looked after by someone who is not their parent or a close relative.

The report notes that following a review of the Family Placement Team in 2022, there was investment into the team with a view to increasing the number of approved mainstream foster carer households.

Foster Wales² launched in 2021 with the aim to unite all 22 Local Authority fostering services in Wales and to have one consistent brand aiming to encourage more people to foster with their Local Authority and that existing foster carers receive better support, training and rewards.

The report includes tables showing the number of foster carers approved by Torfaen County Borough Council over the last three years, as well as the number of foster carers who have been de-registered.

According to the report, Torfaen's Fostering Service was inspected by Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) in May 2025, with the feedback from the inspectors being overwhelmingly positive. The inspection focused on four key themes: Well-being, Care & Support, Environment, and Leadership & Management. The key area for improvement identified in the report was:

Safer care agreements need to consider risk and/or potential risks and provide guidance to foster carers on how manage and/or mitigate risks to keep children safe.

The report includes an action plan to address the recommendations and areas for improvement identified during the inspection.

The report also provides information on My Support Team (MyST), an intensive mental health service for children, young people and their carers/families who have Children and Family Services involvement.

The report notes that the council is experiencing significant pressure and predicted overspends within Children and Family Services, which is being closely monitored through AIG. There is a significant difference in the costings of 'in house' foster placements, IFA placements and Residential placements.

The report outlines ongoing activity related to recruitment and retention of 'in house' foster carers, including reviewing the 'offer' to foster carers, developing a local campaign around fostering teenagers, and increasing the support offer to foster carers.

The report also notes that scrutiny members were provided with the opportunity to meet with Torfaen foster carers on 25 September 2025 at their monthly Foster Carer Support Group.

The report includes several appendices, including the CIW Inspection Report, the Action Plan Following CIW Inspection 2025, and Questions Arising From Foster Carer Meeting.

The committee are invited to review the information contained in the report and:

• Determine whether they are satisfied that the activities proposed will address the recommendation from CIW in respect of our Foster Care Service.
• Assess whether the activities proposed will further improve our Foster Care Service and increase our in-house provision.
• Make recommendations to the Executive Member Children, Families and Education for areas of further development or focus.

Consideration of Item for Next Meeting

The committee are scheduled to consider an item for scrutiny at their next meeting. The report pack includes the basket of items selected at a visioning session, the Executive Forward Plan, and Audit Committee referrals.

The basket of items selected at the visioning session includes:

• Foster Care
• Education Provision for Children Looked After
• Data Sharing
• Children Looked After Strategy
• Childrens Services Structure Redesign

The committee are invited to review the information contained in the appendices and agree on the item for scrutiny at the next meeting.

Other items

The agenda for the meeting includes:

• Welcome & Apologies
• Declarations of interest
• Minutes 09/07/25
• Action Sheet
• Date of next meeting 16/10/25