Social Value Ideas for Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council

Children’s services overspend

The annual social services report highlighted a significant overspend in children's services, driven by increased demand, complexity of placements, external residential care, supported living costs an…

“Looking at the report, it's split in five themes: people, voice and control, prevention, partnerships, wellbeing, and progress against last year's are…”

Rising social care referrals

Children's Social Services reported very high and increasing referral volumes, with 9,373 referrals over the financial year and the highest level in quarter four. The report attributes this to improve…

“Figure 1.1, this is a table that demonstrates the number of referrals received by Children's Social Services across the year. You can see that from th…”

CIW assurance check positive

Care Inspectorate Wales found overall positive practice in children's services, including visible leadership, strong children's voices, good safeguarding, and effective partnership working. The report…

“So what they say is that children's services were undergoing a planned restructure at the time of the assurance check to support longer term sustainab…”

High repeat safeguarding cases

The social services report highlights a significant rise in repeat referrals on open cases, peaking at 2,135 in quarter four. This shows persistent safeguarding concerns in existing cases and implies …

“Figure 1.3 then. This evidences repeated referrals that are received on open cases. So cases that are already open to children's services, where we re…”

Youth funding gap after SPF

The youth service faces a significant funding pressure because Shared Prosperity Fund support for targeted work ended in March 2026 and there is no dedicated Welsh Government funding for universal pre…

“A large proportion of our targeted work has been supported by SPF funding, and the transition for that funding ended in March 2026. At the same time, …”

Youth work statutory plan

Welsh Government's new statutory framework requires Blaenau Gwent Youth Service to produce a five-year youth work strategic plan from April 2027, defining universal and targeted provision, governance,…

“This report's to provide an overview of the strengthened legislative framework for youth work in Wales and what it means for Blaenau Gwent and Blaenau…”

New youth service funding routes

The report explained that the replacement for SPF and related growth funds is restricted mainly to post-16 and has a much less favourable revenue/capital split. This policy environment blocks their us…

“So the replacement of SPF isn't just UK Growth, but it's UK Growth Fund, Trailblazer- Trailblazer ... and there's another, I can't think of the name o…”

Home-to-school transport review

The annual home-to-school transport policy was reviewed for the 2027/28 academic year, with only minor amendments proposed. The main change was clearer wording on pickup points for accessibility reaso…

“So this is the standard home to school transport policy report that is presented to members annually. In line with Welsh government requirements, the …”

Transport budget gap

Home-to-school transport is costing the council about £3.8m a year against an SSA of £2.4m, leaving around £1.4m of annual subsidy from other services. Officers also estimated that reverting to statut…

“Section 4.2 provides performance information relating to the home to school transport service, while section 4.3 outlines the financial position, whic…”