Written question WQ85761

The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 was put in place to ensure that children’s services work with all partners to ensure the safety of children wherever they are in Wales. The Act established a range of additional safeguarding measures, specifically the National Independent Safeguarding Board and Regional Safeguarding Children Boards of Wales.

The Wales Safeguarding Procedures and All Wales Practice Guides are owned by the Safeguarding Boards and were issued in 2019. They promote consistent, evidence-based safeguarding practice across agencies and across Wales.

The Wales Safeguarding Procedures assist practitioners to understand and apply our legislation and statutory guidance. They explain the processes in place for planning and intervention for children on the child protection register and also the process required for de-registration of a child from the child protection register.

The procedures also explain how parents/carers should be involved in implementation of a care and support plan. The procedures also set out that:

Each Regional Safeguarding Board should agree protocols to ensure parents, caregivers and children are aware of the procedures for making a complaint, information is available describing the procedure, and, arrangements for receiving and investigating complaints are established.

The complaints procedure should cover:

• the process of the conference, in terms of adherence to procedures;

• the registration decision, including the category;

• a decision not to register or to de-register.

The procedure should not cover:

• complaints in relation to the contents of records, which will be dealt with by the conference chair;

• complaints or representations relating to services that are delivered by individual agencies as a result of conference decisions;

• complaints about an individual practitioner attending conference. These complaints will be dealt with under the internal complaints’ procedures of the relevant agency. If an issue emerges in relation to an individual practitioner whilst a conference complaint is being addressed, it will be referred to that individual’s agency.

Further information on these arrangements can be found at Social care Wales (safeguarding.wales)