Impact report: 2022 to 2023

Social care, childcare, play and early years faced another challenging year in 2022 to 2023. We entered a new phase of the pandemic that eventually saw a reduction in restrictions, but coincided with a cost of living crisis and the impact of Brexit, leading to acute problems with recruitment and retention.

We do not underestimate the challenges, but we believe we have significant opportunities to support improvements for the people of Wales. We also know from our work how passionate and professional the workforce is about the work they do and how much it means to them to help the people they support to live the lives that matter to them.

We will not be able to achieve these changes alone. Working with others is central to how we work, and partnership will continue to be at the heart of how we will deliver our outcomes. We will continue to support collaborative working across social care, early years, education, health and wider partners, locally and nationally.

Despite the significant challenges of the last few years, we’ve made progress and we need to celebrate this and the improvements made by the sector. Social care and early years are facing major workforce challenges and it’s difficult to attract new people into the sector and retain the existing workforce. We are doing all we can, within our remit, to support the sector.

This is our first impact report against the outcomes we set out in our five-year strategic plan. At Social Care Wales, we are committed to delivering these ambitions to make a positive difference to care and support in Wales for children, adults and their families and carers.

We want to say a big thank you to everyone working in the social care, childcare, play and early years sectors for their continued hard work, commitment and professionalism in these challenging times.

Diolch yn fawr

Sue Evans, our Chief Executive, and Mick Giannasi, our Chair