Leadership
Conwy has strong governance arrangements, including a Member-led overview and scrutiny function, which has a positive and constructive ethos of acknowledging good practice and recommends improvements where necessary. Scrutiny seeks to engage with the community where possible to enhance the quality of life and well-being for all who live, work or visit the area. This is achieved by scrutinising the policies and services provided by the Council and where we work in partnership with external organisations.
We submit various reports to Scrutiny Committee for review and challenge and have a robust internal process for performance oversight and challenge. We hold meetings with our inspectorate throughout the year and we routinely and actively review our own practice to ensure continuous service improvement.
On a management level, the Director of Social Care and Education Services reports directly to the Chief Executive of the Council, and they are supported by our departmental management team. Our Heads of Service for Children, Families and Safeguarding, and Integrated Adults and Community Services are, in turn, supported by Service Managers who cover ten areas of provision.
The governance arrangements in place support the effective management of Social Care. The Council facilitates a Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and has appointed two Portfolio Holders to represent the two Social Care service areas: Cllr Penny Andow holds the portfolio for Integrated Adult and Community Services, and in November 2024 Cllr Cathy Augustine, took on the portfolio for Children, Families and Safeguarding. On taking up the role, Cllr Augustine said:
“It’s a real privilege to take on this role and I recognise the huge responsibility of helping CCBC fulfil our duty to some of our most vulnerable children and young adults. But I know I’ll be working with some fantastic colleagues – elected members and officers – as part of a committed and experienced team.
“On a personal level, over the past five years, I’ve become closely involved with many of the processes associated with children looked after. This is why I particularly look forward to working in collaboration with colleagues across the social care, housing and education teams with a shared focus of ensuring that the voice of the child is central to our joint goals and work. I’m fully aware of the challenges – and of course the current financial context. I realise that Cabinet is a collective, delivering across all our service areas and to all our residents, and I look forward to being a member of that wider team too.”
Councillors Augustine and Andow will work closely with the portfolio-holders for Education, and Housing, Homelessness and Service Change to ensure that our joint goals are approached as a collective:
“As Cabinet Members for Housing, Social Care, and Education, we are committed to working collaboratively across our departments to deliver on the Council’s corporate priorities. We recognise the vital role that each of these areas plays in shaping the well-being of our communities, and we are dedicated to taking a joined-up approach to achieve positive outcomes for all residents.
By strengthening the integration of social care, housing, and education services, we aim to create a cohesive support system that addresses the diverse needs of individuals and families in Conwy. We will work together to improve access to safe, affordable housing, ensure high-quality educational opportunities, and provide comprehensive social care that supports people at all stages of life.
Our collective efforts will focus on early intervention, supporting vulnerable individuals, and fostering an environment that enables everyone in Conwy to live fulfilling, healthy lives. Through close collaboration, we are committed to delivering services that are more responsive, efficient, and effective, ensuring that Conwy continues to thrive as a place where people can live well, learn, and grow.
Together, we will strive to achieve these goals and make a meaningful difference to our communities.”
Legislation and plans
The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act came into force in April 2016. It provides the legal framework for improving the well-being of people who need care and support, and carers who need support, and for transforming social services in Wales. The fundamental principles of the Act are:
- Voice and control
- Prevention and early intervention
- Well-being
- Co-production
The associated Code of Practice sets out a framework for measuring the progress that local authorities make against their duties under the Act as a whole. This process also enables us to continuously improve services. As required by the Code of Practice, we have arrangements in place to collect and return data on statutory performance measures to Welsh Government on an annual basis. Measuring performance activity is carried out in line with each of the quality standards, which focus on people, prevention, partnerships and integration, and well-being.
The Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act (RISCA) 2016 places the quality of services and improvement at the heart of regulation and provides the statutory framework for the regulation and inspection of social care in Wales.
The Welsh Government’s Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 outlines a set of national outcomes and places a duty on public bodies to put sustainable development at the heart of decisions. This Act ensures that environmental, social, and economic considerations are central to decision-making.
In Conwy we incorporate these objectives into our Corporate Plan for the period 2022-2027. It outlines the long-term goals that our communities have told us are important and sets our strategic direction as an organisation for a five-year period. As a service, we reflect how we are contributing to these priorities through our Service Performance Review process.
Developing an inclusive community and workplace
One of the key principles for delivery of the Corporate Plan is around inclusion:
We want the future to change for the better, creating a more inclusive society that actively promotes equity and diversity and tackles discrimination.
Our Inclusive Conwy Plan 2024-2028 aims to focus on people and their lived experience, rather than our obligation to comply with legislation. An ‘Inclusive Conwy’ is the goal, that no matter what your background, you can live, work and visit a county where you are welcome and feel acceptance and belonging.
The plan also sets out the key priorities that the local authority will focus on over the next four years and incorporates actions from the Welsh Government’s Anti-racist Wales Action Plan and LGBTQ+ Action Plan.
As a local authority, we have undertaken a significant amount of work in this area, some of the highlights being:
- Developing our Inclusive Conwy Plan for 2024-28, which prompted us to reflect on our approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and adopt a person-centred approach.
- Expanding our training offer to staff, with introductory race awareness sessions, in-person Introduction to Inclusive Conwy training and a new e-learning module
- Becoming members of Inclusive Employers, giving us access to a wide range of resources, webinars and good practice to support our inclusive workplace culture
- Being the first county in Wales where all secondary schools participate in the KiVa anti-bullying programme
- Hosting an ongoing Social Care-led listening campaign in Llanfairfechan to improve dementia care and encourage the development of dementia-friendly communities across Wales
- Developing and coordinating the Autistic Spectrum Condition Code of Practice implementation plans, improving publicly available information around neurodiversity, and developing neurodiversity-specific projects and activities in the local area.
In Social Care we are working with corporate colleagues to develop measurable outcomes to implement the actions and recommendations set out in the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan: Eliminating racism in the workplace, led by ADSS Cymru and commissioned by the Welsh Government. This plan sets the challenge to Directors of Social Services to tackle racism within the Social Care workforce and foster an inclusive, equitable workplace for all Social Care workers and the communities they support. The following recommendations were made:
- Ensure every member of staff understands racism and the impact it can have
- State our commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to racism, actively calling it out when it happens
- Review our policies and procedures for reporting, investigating and monitoring reports of racism to ensure they are effective and ensure a clear and satisfactory conclusion every time
- Pilot evaluation framework for handling cases of racism
- Ensure sufficient support is available to anyone experiencing racism
- Work with national partners to develop and implement programme of learning to share experience and good practice across Wales
- Report on progress annually
The Director of Social Care must act on the findings of the study by:
- Sharing the findings of the study with their Chief Executive Officer and fellow Directors to identify what more can be done to eliminate racism across Local Authority services.
- Ensure every member of recruitment and selection panels has undertaken cultural awareness training before shortlisting and interviewing candidates.
- Working with Human Resources colleagues to address any gaps in the data needed to monitor and compare recruitment and promotion statistics for candidates from ethnic backgrounds with those from other staff.
- Arranging for all staff in Social Care to receive training on cultural awareness and other matters relevant to tackling racism.
- Reviewing and increasing the support provided to new and existing staff from ethnic minority backgrounds in the recruitment process and in work.
- Sharing their experience of recruiting and supporting staff from ethnic minority backgrounds with other local authorities and their intentions for further improvements in this area.
- Using the annual report to demonstrate progress against the findings of the study.
In September 2024, we commissioned Professor Prospera Tedam to deliver three workshops, with 111 staff in attendance. The aims of the workshops were to:
- Fully understand the definition of oppression and anti-oppression
- Examine when and how our practice might be oppressive to others
- Equip us with tools and knowledge to address all forms of oppression
- Enhance understanding of power and powerlessness.
Professor Prospera Tedam said:
“I thoroughly enjoyed delivering these workshops over the three days with your practitioners. It was very well organised and co-ordinated. I felt that participants really engaged well with the sometimes uncomfortable segments and I hope they continue to reflect on the content”.
Feedback from participants was positive:
“I will start having conversations with staff on a regular basis about how our behaviour impacts others, continuing to challenge when needed.”
“Remember that intent can be irrelevant – I may not intend to offend anyone, but if I do I have to take responsibility for that.”
“Need to ensure this is always on our agenda and not a token, ensuring it is always a thread through all that we do.”
Looking forward
We are keen to ensure that the focus remains on people and their lived experiences, rather than just our obligation to comply with legislation. As a Local Authority we know we have a lot of work to do to make sure our workplaces and services are fair and inclusive for everyone. Some of the areas we have identified are:
- Embedding a culture of awareness and individual responsibility amongst staff so that everyone understands that ‘it doesn’t have to happen to you, to matter to you’
- Increasing our capacity to deliver on the above (more on this below)
- Listening to people’s lived experiences and acting on what we learn to deliver meaningful changes
- Celebrating diversity across the region in our communications and events
- Continuing to develop our training offer, including self-directed learning opportunities
- Continuing to deliver important and inclusive services for residents, despite significant budgetary pressures
Our organisational development will influence and strengthen our engagement and interaction across sectors and in our community, reflecting and communicating our core values and commitment to inclusion.
The establishment of our new anti-racism working group is one initiative that will enable focused work to challenge disparities experienced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and individuals delivering and receiving our services, and on attracting our future workforce.
A new appointment to help drive change
We are delighted to have created a new full-time post to strengthen our commitment to being a more inclusive and equitable authority and to build organisational resilience for our future. In January 2025 we welcomed a newly appointed Inclusive Conwy Manager as part of the People and Performance Service. This new developmental role will lead our vision for greater inclusivity and, with the support of our Inclusive Conwy steering group, will drive and implement meaningful and positive change.
The Inclusive Conwy Manager will aim to improve organisational listening and learning, with a focus on the lived experience of marginalised groups. The post holder will plan and implement effective and informed inclusion policies and practices built on clear principles and will lead initiatives to foster an environment of respect.
Our Inclusive Conwy Strategy outlines our commitment to creating a safer and fairer workplace that reflects and understands the wider community and celebrates all the benefits that our differences bring. Our vision is to be an organisation of opportunity, understanding and trust, and along with senior management commitment and investment, the Inclusive Conwy Manager will be essential to supporting this strategic change. We are on a journey of cultural transformation to ensure we are an organisation where everyone feels they belong, are valued, and understands their part to play in achieving this.
Workforce
Here we’ll tell you more about our Social Care workforce, the opportunities we’re creating for people to develop their careers with us, and the inevitable challenges we face along the way.
The chart below shows the number of positions and vacancies in Social Care, as well as our use of agency workers across the two service areas:
Within our children’s workforce, we have:
- A 22% vacancy rate across the service areas
- A 16% vacancy rate in social work
- Eleven agency social workers contracted to support staffing voids
Within our adult’s workforce, we have:
- A 7% vacancy rate across the service areas
- A 7% vacancy rate in social work
- Four agency social workers contracted to support staffing voids
Vacancy trends do vary over time depending on the pressures of the role, national high-profile cases, and other factors such as retirement, change of job role, or leaving the area. It is typical to see a higher vacancy rate in Children’s Services and whilst pressures exist across client groups, there is a need to make more efforts with marketing and attracting candidates to apply for roles in the Children, Families and Safeguarding Service.
Social Work Recruitment
One of our key objectives is a sustainable social work workforce. To achieve this, we recognise the need to open varied pathways into social work and ensure our workforce is resilient. We have a mixed model of social work supply; as well as direct recruitment to social work posts we have in place a successful ‘grow our own’ pathway for existing employees. Over the next three years, this pathway will supply six employees who will qualify in 2025, four in 2026 and a further four in 2027.
In September 2024, we launched our Graduate Trainee Social Work positions. There are two full-time posts on two-year fixed-term contracts, and the two individuals appointed to the positions will complete the MA in Social Work at Bangor University. Throughout the two years, the Workforce Service will support those individuals to be based within social work teams and supervised by a social work Team Manager. Following qualification, they will be offered a permanent social work role within the Local Authority.
Valuing social work as a profession is key to retaining the Social Workers we employ, and each year we mark World Social Work Day, to include practitioners, managers, students, trainees, and individuals who are beginning their path towards social work as a career, as well as those who are actively involved in supporting and enabling that journey. In March 2025, we held an event at our Coed Pella offices to explore the theme of the year: strengthening intergenerational solidarity for enduring wellbeing. This was an ideal opportunity for Social Workers across adult and children’s services to get together around a topic that builds bridges across the age groups.
Occupational Therapy Recruitment
We have been working jointly with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB), Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) and Wrexham University to address long-standing recruitment of Occupational Therapists (OT) into Social Care. As a result, HEIW have recognised the need to increase funding for degree places at Wrexham University and for any additional places to be ring-fenced for local authority traineeships. We are currently recruiting to our Conwy OT Traineeship position.
The next stage of this joint work will be to address post-qualification learning, with the aim of establishing a joint Health and Social Care post-qualification learning programme, funded by HEIW.
Children’s Residential Pathway
Supporting the rapid expansion of our children’s residential provision requires a flexible and suitably trained workforce. We have therefore developed a progression pathway to support, develop and encourage people to join our workforce. Aligned to the Wales Qualification Framework and Social Care Wales workforce registration requirements, the pathway offers a clear route for progression within our children’s residential provision and beyond.
As of January 2025, we are recruiting ten full-time Level 1 Childcare Residential Workers. Recognising these positions are entry-level into the workforce, they will attend college two days per week to gain their City & Guilds core qualification and be supported to work across our residential establishments. On gaining the qualification and completing workforce registration, we will automatically deploy them as Level 2 Residential Childcare Workers and support them to gain a Level 3 role in one of our residential settings.
We will be holding two information sessions at Llandrillo College during 2025 to raise awareness and promote residential work as a career choice. We’ll also develop a recruitment, on-boarding and training plan to ensure the prompt and effective recruitment of Registered Managers and support workers for each development.
Mwy Na Geiriau (More Than Just Words)
The Mwy Na Geiriau/More Than Just Words Five Year Plan (2022-2027) is the Welsh Government’s strategic framework to strengthen Welsh language provision in Health and Social Care. Its aim is to support Welsh speakers to receive services in their first language, and the plan is based on the following themes:
- Culture and leadership
- Welsh language planning and policies
- Supporting and developing the Welsh language skills of the workforce
- Sharing best practice and developing an enabling approach
We continue to deliver monthly Mwy Na Geiriau training sessions to the whole of the Social Care sector. The training covers:
- An Introduction to ‘More Than Just Words – Mwy Na Geiriau’
- The framework for Welsh language services in health, social services and social care
- Public Policy and Legislation: The Welsh language standards and what they mean to our organisations
- The language need, and the active offer in relation to the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act
- The experience of service users
- Leading and implementing change
- Language and mental health
- Language, culture and dementia
- Exchanging good practice
The content has been reviewed to include children and early years, and the training is a mandatory course within our fostering services learning pathway.
In total, 261 social care workers from across the care sector have completed the course, and of these, 190 are employed by Conwy, representing 21% of our workforce. The majority of those attending the courses are employed within older people services and predominantly in residential settings. Our intention, however, is for all CCBC employees to have undertaken the training by 2027, which is the lifespan of our Mwy Na Geiriau/More Than Just Words Five Year Plan.
In addition to offering training:
- We continue to invest in and support the bilingual Social Work MA programme delivered at Bangor University.
- We are strengthening the Social Care Supervision Policy to incorporate the objectives of the Conwy Ein Llais Cymraeg (Welsh language promotion) strategy; this means that we will support and encourage staff to recognise and use their existing Welsh language abilities.
- When we transfer over to our new client information system in 2026, we hope to provide statistical information on our Active Offer.
Our plan is for all internal teams to have a Welsh language team agreement in place which sets out how they will support and encourage members to use Welsh within the workplace. This is currently being piloted in our Community Well-being Service.
In terms of commissioned services, care providers have a responsibility to ensure their service is creating the right environment for people’s needs to be met. They have a responsibility as a regulated service with Care Inspectorate Wales to promote Welsh language and culture, so Mwy Na Geiriau/More Than Just Words applies to them too. Recent information gathered shows that 78% of older people’s care homes and 78% of domiciliary care agencies have fluent Welsh speakers amongst their employees. We will continue to place emphasis on Welsh language provision via our Monitoring Team visits, and encourage uptake of the training available.
In 2025 we will continue the work outlined above and work with our Welsh Language and Translation Unit to progress each of these actions within the Social Care workforce:
- Support staff to have courtesy-level Cymraeg, including pronunciation of place names and basic greetings
- Increase the amount of Cymraeg spoken in the workplace
- Increase the use of Cymraeg words within our English communications to help people to learn Cymraeg
- Support staff with their confidence to use their Cymraeg in the workplace
- Promote Dysgu Cymraeg courses and other ways to learn Welsh
- Offer staff access to Cymraeg reports and simultaneous translation in meetings
- Utilise Cymraeg and Dysgu Cymraeg lanyards to encourage staff to use their Cymraeg in the workplace.
Key data
The Social Care National Release, published in March 2025, relating to 2023/2024 data, is a good way to guide performance and highlight areas for improvement. The recording of the active offer of Welsh on new assessments in the children’s services area, needed improvement. The data showed that only 2.6% of new assessments had an active offer of Welsh recorded. The Welsh average was 74%.*
This is in contrast to the new assessments undertaken in a language of choice, which was 90.1%, and above the Welsh average of 81.4%.*
*Data taken from the Social Care National Release, for 2023/2024 data, published in March 2025.
Of the 191 new children’s assessments completed, only 5 (2.6%) had an active offer of Welsh recorded, this was the lowest recorded in Wales, with the next lowest being 23.2% for Rhondda Cynon Taf.* Of the 5 assessments which had the active offer of Welsh, none were accepted.
*Data taken from the Social Care National Release, for 2023/2024 data, published in March 2025.
The low percentage of Active Offers is likely due to a recording issue in our client information system, as the graph below confirms that we are undertaking over 81% of assessments using the individual’s language of choice.*
Financial resources
The 2024/25 Social Care budget of £90.08m was approved by Council on 29 February 2024. During the year, the budget increased to £91.84m, primarily in recognition of the additional costs resulting from nationally agreed pay awards for staff.
The actual 2024/25 expenditure was £98.43m which exceeded the budget by £6.59m and resulted from increased cost pressures:
- The costs relating to Children Looked After exceeded the budget by £4.38m because of increases in the number of placements, the number of high-cost settings, and the average costs of the placements increasing.
- Another main area which contributed towards expenditure exceeding the budget related to the Vulnerable People budget where there were additional costs of 2.47m due to high-cost placements.
- The Older People Service experienced a steady increase in demand over the year which cost an additional £1.65m.
- Other services were underspent which assisted in partly offsetting these key pressures.
As the budget pressures increased during the year, we took further steps to manage the pressures. The Strategic Director and Heads of Services continued to reiterate to budget holders that only essential expenditure was to be incurred, and that all spend was subject to detailed scrutiny. Extensive effort was made to ensure that all income due was collected in-year. However, there have ben delays in income contributions being fully agreed with partner authorities, particularly Health. All grants have been fully maximised in line with their respective terms and conditions.
The holistic approach taken within the service has been to reduce expenditure where possible, maximise income and seeking to minimise the unavoidable budget pressures the service has experienced. As budget pressures increased, they were reported through the corporate quarterly budget reports so that the Authority was able to address and plan for the risk.
2025/26
During 2024/25 we have analysed our financial situation and been successful with the following business cases and pressure areas to address the 2025/26 budget pressures:
Business Cases
| Service | Amount (£m) |
|---|---|
| Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) | 0.243 |
| Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) (staff) | 0.101 |
| Emergency Duty Team | 0.069 |
| Independent Safeguarding and Reviewing Resource | 0.040 |
| Children’s Monitoring | 0.027 |
| Total | 0.480 |
Business Pressures
| Service | Amount (£m) |
|---|---|
| Children Looked After | 2.879 |
| High-cost Vulnerable People placements and UASC pressures | 1.746 |
| Care fees and domiciliary/supported living fee increase | 4.780 |
| Increase in demand within Older People Service | 1.995 |
| Total | 11.400 |
We have committed to deliver savings from various services which total £0.680m
Comparison between the outturn for 2023/24 and 2024/25:
| Adult Services | 2023/24 Outturn £’000 | 2024/25 Outturn £’000 | 2024/25 Variance £’000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Support | 4,383 | 4,276 | -107 |
| Community Wellbeing | 679 | 286 | -393 |
| Disability | 25,577 | 27,061 | 1,484 |
| Older People | 29,133 | 33,416 | 4,283 |
| Quality Standards & Commissioning | 993 | 1,123 | 130 |
| Adult Services Total | 60,765 | 66,161 | 5,396 |
| Children’s Services | 2023/24 Outturn £’000 | 2024/25 Outturn £’000 | 2024/25 Variance £’000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family Support and Intervention | 2,728 | 3,135 | 407 |
| Children Looked After | 16,134 | 18,696 | 2,562 |
| Safeguarding | 261 | 283 | 23 |
| Vulnerable People | 7,273 | 9,967 | 2,694 |
| Youth Justice | 181 | 186 | 5 |
| Children’s Services Total | 26,577 | 32,268 | 5,691 |
| Total | 87,342 | 98,429 | 11,087 |
Note that the variance is a comparison of the actual spend in 2023/24 and 2024/25 as opposed to a comparison of spend against the budget in each of those years. The budget for 2024/25 was updated to reflect known cost pressures due to pay and price inflation, as well as service demand. The variances reflect those cost pressures.