Wales becomes the first UK nation to remove profit from children’s homes, fostering, and secure accommodation
In less than a month, new providers of children’s homes, fostering services and secure accommodation will no longer be able to make a profit in Wales — making it the first nation in the UK to take this landmark step.
Currently, some children’s care homes and fostering services in Wales are run by companies that make a profit. That means public money can end up in shareholders’ pockets rather than being spent on the children who need it most.
The Welsh Government is committed to phasing out the extraction of profit from children’s social care services, specifically children’s homes, fostering services, and secure accommodation, as part of its wider reform under the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025.
From 1 April, all new providers of these services in Wales must be not-for-profit. This means every pound spent on the care they provide will go directly towards supporting those children.
Changes are being phased in carefully to make sure individual children’s care is not disrupted.
Care for looked after children will only be provided by the public sector, charitable or not-for-profit organisations in the future.
Care Inspectorate Wales will oversee compliance and has the power to act if rules are broken.
Organisations that want to move to a not-for-profit model can access free, tailored support from Cwmpas, funded by the Welsh Government.
Minister for Children and Social Care, Dawn Bowden said: “Looked after children are some of the most vulnerable young people in our society. They deserve care that is totally committed to their needs.
“The changes we are putting in place mean that when we invest in children’s care, that money stays where it belongs for the benefit of those children. I’m proud that Wales is leading the way on this.”
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Let us hope it does not turn out like Dwr Cymru…
Rest assured if accountants and lawyers get anywhere near these sectors they will drive a coach and horses through this plan. Government is still failing to get a grip of reality and that can only be secured by taking these services back in-house even if the beneficiaries have to make some level of payment. Of course given its bureaucratic track record we will be presented with a new variant of inefficiency, greed replaced by boxticking as a factor in service underachievement.
Keep the “consultants” away from it.
Governments and people don’t need costly consultants and lawyers in certain situations if one uses the brain one is born with. Financial advisers, lawyers and consultants are only interested in one thing ….. filling their own pockets with lots of lovely lolly for very little work..
High time elder care and wider social care was put on a not for profit basis too.
This is proof that my long held belief can be achieved. Not a single penny of the basics of life should end up in the bank accounts of the profiteering shareholder tyrrany. Mortgages/Rents, council tax, energy, water and NHS contributions – the basics of life. These must be made off limits to spivs.
Well overdue. They were talking about this years ago!
On the back of the success they are having with NHS Wales, heh? All our hospitals in special measures. If noone comes forwards, can they step up and fill the breech?
How far will this go? Will MSs who deal with this be paid for deliberating and setting up laws for this, will senedd staff members be paid for operational and organising duties will accountants and lawyers dealing with this law be remunerated in any way, really how far will it go.
MS’s are already getting paid to scrutinise. That’s their job and what they were voted in to do. The real question is why it’s taken them 26 years to do this?!
Reductio ad absurbam ? Really….?
Have you nothing better to say?
Next step must be to make residential care homes profit-free too. Charging between one and two thousand pounds a week is robbery.
Since large US corporations have been buying big time into UK elderly care it is going to be a battle to get them out, unfortunately. They are there for one thing, large profits.
Remember that salaries are taken as business expenses before the profit is calculated. If you want to get rich as a non profit, get on the payroll, and pay yourself a king’s ransom. Making organisations “non-profit”, also requires control of the amounts being paid to senior staff. Welsh Water (and the salary of its CEO) is a clear example of what is wrong with the current not-for-profit setup.
I’m not sure the CEOs pay is really that much of an issue. If they got paid nothing that money would reduce people’s bills by about 20p a year. If I had the responsibility for over 3,000 direct employees, over £2bn of annual spend, could be held criminally liable for my decisions as a CEO, I would want significant remuneration too. You have to pay a lot for people take on that kind of responsibility. Additionally, it’s lower than the other for-profit water companies over in England pay.
The real problem is the outsourcing of work from Dwr Cymru to the private sector and a lot of “profit” is built in to that. It is the workers who suffer being TUPE’d from one employer to another.
Wales has got Transport for Wales staff contracts right – full-time staff. In comparison Manchester Piccadilly Train station is full of lots of agency staff – so those individuals are not full-time. Also it is not about high paying roles, but working conditions / networking. From 2012 for 12 years my family owned a flat next to Beaulieu Casino near Nice, France. The development started after all 50 flats were sold, then we waited about three years for the building to be completed. The developer still manages the flats and arranges lettings and cleaning services. The Concierge (building manager) has… Read more »
Great! Now do the same with care for the elderly. Many of these residential homes are owned are run by greedy companies from over the border. The economy needs to be decolonized.
Many are now owned by greedy American companies who can small excess profits from half the globe away.
It came too late after a too long fraud by officials destroying stable homes for a profit.
Fraudsters embedded in the system destroyed my happy family for profit in 2019. I haven’t seen my young children since then and the Welsh Government should come clean, compensate me for £7Million and bring my children back.
£40,000 is paid to the agency, when a child is adopted. There is an economic incentive to separate siblings for adoption. Care is big business. The not for profit is just marketing before an Election. Plenty of money will be made. My top pledge is sn enquiry into children services and additional learning needs in Wales if/when elected to the Senedd .
The move is meaningless. Such enterprises will just continue as a private company in England and set up a trading subsidiary registered with the charity commission of England&Wales, this in turn is then charged a ‘management fee”. This is arrangement many ‘third sector’ providers already have. Until such time Wales has it’s own charity commission, like in Scotland, there will always be such work-arounds.
Is this going to be another not for profit joke along the lines of Welsh Water ?
Who do they think is going to provide these services ? I assume it is their intention therefore to set up these homes themselves under the control of councils , will they fund the Councils appropriately? I doubt it , it will be underfunded and lumped on to Council tax to cover difference.
What a load of codswallop. It is the quality of care and the overall price that are important. When those are considered how the purveyor does it is irrelevant
Another decision that will turn round and bite them in the Mub
How many companies work for no profit
Are these people from this world
Ask yourself, why would investment groups hold onto fostering agencies if they were not for profit?
They just hide it
Let’s hope this will be more effective than the charge on plastic bags, of pious and immortal memory.
Nice one Wales. Now go for the the nursing homes. If as has happened. Accountants, Doctors and Solicitors are snapping them up and also developing new homes. Profits must be good.