Our outcomes

We do not underestimate the challenges these changes will bring, but we believe we have significant opportunities to support improvements for the people of Wales. We will not be able to achieve these changes alone. Working with others is central to how we operate, and partnership will be at the heart of how we will deliver these priorities.

We want to continue our journey to embed a culture of people and organisations being involved across all our work. We will continue to respond to the changing needs of the social care and early years sectors. We are committed to listening and responding to the views and needs of adults and children who rely on care and support, their families and those working in the sector to inform our work, by working with commissioners and providers to capture those views. This includes engaging with people who rely on care and support, care workers and early years professionals to develop appropriate training to meet the diverse care and support needs of citizens across Wales.

We will continue to look for opportunities to work together, learn from best practice and welcome ‘critical friends’ from across other sectors. This focus on partnership will inform all the work to be delivered under this plan.

We are committed to supporting the Programme for Government 2021 - 2026, the principles of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and our responsibilities as a Welsh public service organisation. This strategy will build on the foundations of 'Cymraeg 2050: A million Welsh speakers' and 'The Race Equality Action Plan' to create an engaged, healthy, flexible, responsive and sustainable workforce for the future that reflects Wales’s diverse population, Welsh language and cultural identity.

Strong social care and early years services in Wales will help reduce the impact of people living in poverty, neglect, illness, disability, or discrimination because of race or other protected characteristics. These disadvantages often lead to health inequalities and undermine the prospects of children reaching their potential or for adults having fulfilled lives. We will continue to promote equality and diversity within the social care and early years workforce along with how we work and across our Board and workforce in delivering the objectives within the Race Equality Action Plan.

By developing and building on the skills of the care workforce, we will help children, adults and older people who rely on care and support to maintain and improve their health and well-being and achieve what matters to them.

We will be answerable to the people of Wales through the Senedd and its Members. Following our consultation, which drew positive support for our priorities, we have considered your views and have tried to make sure this strategic plan shows clearly the difference we intend to make and how we will measure our impact. We are living in an ever-changing world and have to live with ambiguity and uncertainty. Our strategic plan provides direction but is flexible and responsive enough to make sure what we deliver is fit for purpose. Our detailed actions and activities will be published annually through our business plan and the difference we make will be shown in an annual impact report.

Making a positive difference to care and support in Wales for children, adults and their families and carers.

We will use people’s experiences of using care and support, national well-being outcomes and indicators, thematic reports and case studies to show the progress towards realising our vision. We want to make sure we do not lose the person at the heart of how care and support is provided across Wales.

We provide national leadership and expertise in social care and early years, leading on developing and regulating the social care workforce[1], service improvement, data and research to improve care and support.

[1] As defined by the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016

The strategic plan sets our vision, purpose, and outcomes for the next five years. It explains what will be different, what we will do and how we will work.

It is important we are clear on what we want this strategic plan to achieve and the differences and changes we would like to see at the end of the five years.

The changes we would like to see are national outcomes which are dependent on the hard work of many organisations, each with their own remit and responsibilities. But we need to be clear on what we can contribute to, which bring about the outcomes or changes we all wish to see.

The eight national outcomes are:

• Improved well-being for the social care and early years workforce
• A social care and early years workforce that is highly recognised and valued
• Social care practice and policy that is underpinned by innovation, high-quality research, data and other forms of evidence[2]
• A registered social care workforce that has the public’s confidence
• A social care and early years workforce that is suitably qualified, knowledgeable and skilled with the right values, behaviours and practice
• Social care and early years services that attract, recruit and retain people with the right values to meet the needs of those who need care and support
• Social care services that embed and deliver strengths-based approaches to care and support
• Social Care Wales provides effective, high quality and sustainable services.

For each national outcome, we explain why it is important, how we will show change, and where we will focus our energy and commitment to work with you over the next five years to realise our vision.

[2] By evidence-informed practice, we mean that decisions about how to provide care and support are informed by an understanding of the best available evidence about what is effective – drawing from research and data, the wisdom and experience of practitioners and the wisdom, experience and views of people who use care and support and their carers

Our impact report is an overview of what we've achieved against our eight national outcomes.

• Read the Impact report 2023 to 2024
• Read the Impact report 2022 to 2023
• Read the Impact report 2021 to 2022

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