The first ever Care Policy Scorecard within a UK nation has been published following a joint project across the Bevan Foundation, Carers Wales and Oxfam Cymru. The scorecard explores and scores a range of indicators spanning paid care, unpaid care, and childcare policy in Wales and the scores on the door paint a mixed picture of progress thus far.
There are many people who’ll be familiar with unpaid care, social care and childcare in Wales. These sectors – like government – are full of people who work hard with the very best of intentions, but for too many people, interfacing with the care system can be a source of frustration, deprivation and, all too often, desperation.
There are a range of issues across the three policy areas that show their distinct challenges clearly, but there are also many shared obstacles, which offers some hope that many of these can be tackled with shared solutions. Doing so will help us to create a more effective, more efficient, and fairer, system of care for people across Wales.
In the run-up to next year’s Senedd election, where care (in its many forms) will play a key part of the debate around the Wales we want to see, we believe the scorecard can help focus minds and manifestos on where we can take steps in the right direction. Key findings are outlined below.
Unpaid care in Wales
In Wales there are between 310,000 and half a million people providing care to family, friends, or neighbours on an unpaid basis. The care they provide gives people greater independence, tackles isolation, and would cost Welsh public services over £10bn per year to replace. Yet, as shown in this report, and in many others by Carers Wales, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, and even in the Welsh government’s own review of the key act pertaining to unpaid carers, many struggle to see their rights in Welsh law fulfilled.
Many of the aims and principles relating to support for unpaid carers in Wales are commendable and attract broad support from carers, carer organisations and policy experts across Wales. However, despite these good intentions and pockets of good practice, the scorecard paints a familiar picture of carers in Wales struggling to make ends meet, struggling with their health and wellbeing, and struggling to get any sort of respite or breaks from their caring roles because of policy failure.
Poverty levels among unpaid carers in Wales are well researched and show an alarming number of carers pushed into poverty as a direct result of their caring role. It is positive that – in response to these issues – the Welsh government has provided a Carers Support Fund, which benefitted 15,000 carers between 2022 and 2025. Yet carer poverty remains stubbornly and persistently higher than the rate among the general population.
The scale of good practice is simply dwarfed by the scale of the issue it seeks to mitigate.
Paid care
Similarly to the situation with unpaid care, laws and legislation exist pertaining to the paid care workforce and sector which are positive and progressive, but there is little evidence to suggest that these are having the transformative impact intended or desired on the issues the sector faces.
The Welsh government’s work to ensure that the paid social care workforce receives the Real Living Wage is admirable, with the production of guidance and allocation of resources to local authorities as well as the convening of groups and stakeholders to deliver on this commitment in their Programme for Government. Yet evidence shows that the funding is not yet reaching all paid care workers, in spite of efforts.
Concerns around the monitoring of another key area of important work, relating to the gender pay gap for women, paint a disappointingly familiar picture. One of a demonstrable commitment to equal pay from the Welsh government, but no robust way to monitor progress towards that commitment and thus to tackle the barriers and blocks to closing the gap in a sector in which over 80% of the workforce are women.
Wales’s childcare
The scorecard identifies a range of projects and practice which is entirely commendable and does make a difference to the lives of children and families across Wales. But – and no prizes for guessing what comes next – these projects and practice are let down by a lack of implementation and by being insufficient to meet the demands of the wider population.
Take Flying Start – which provides funded childcare and early learning on a universal basis to two-year-olds. Prioritising underserved and marginalised communities had been a key focus of the initiative. However, this has been undermined by the area-based approach, meaning that children and families from marginalised communities living in less-deprived areas – sometimes separated by a matter of metres – have been unable to access the programme.
Couple this with the Welsh government’s childcare offer. Affordability issues relating to childcare are well researched and well reported, yet only parents who work an average of 16 hours a week or are in full-time training are able to take advantage of this offer. Concerns exist that funding for the policy is insufficient even for those who are eligible. Underpinning all these concerns is a lack of skilled professionals in the childcare workforce and a sharp shortage of settings capable of providing adequate care to children with additional needs.
Legislative implementation
Snaking like a seam through all these issues is the well-worn conundrum faced by many well-meaning laws passed by successive Welsh governments over a period of years. Namely, that despite admirable intentions, in too many instances these laws sit on the statute book without making a meaningful difference to many people whose lives they’d been designed and intended to improve.
Consider the main piece of legislation pertaining to unpaid carers in Wales. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 grants all unpaid carers in Wales rights to information and advice as well as the right to have their needs – as unpaid carers – assessed to see if they may be eligible for support. In principle, these are sensible and well-considered measures to support unpaid carers to continue to provide care and live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives alongside their caring roles.
In practice, research from Carers Wales shows that in 2023–24 only 0.3% to 8% of carers had their needs assessed, whilst the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales report in 2024 found that only 2.8% of carers in investigated authorities had their needs assessed, with only 1.5% receiving any sort of support plan as a result.
Statistically, this is a worrying indictment of a failure within Wales to effectively enforce our own laws. The human impact of such poor implementation is stark. This inability to deliver on promises drives distrust and cynicism, with carers with whom we work suggesting that assessments are a ‘paper exercise’ as opposed to a vital tool for support.
Furthermore, the lack of support reaching carers is a direct catalyst for the 36% increase in the number of carers reporting poor mental health between 2023 and 2024; the 60% of carers reporting feeling overwhelmed; and the more than one in three carers who are cutting back on essentials like food and heating.
Leadership at the Senedd
Whilst many of the duties on implementation of laws passed in the Senedd by the Welsh government fall to statutory bodies, such as councils and health services, time is up on the Welsh government’s ineffective approach to quality assuring its own agenda. For too long, in too many areas, laws intended to make a meaningful difference to the lives and lots of people in Wales have been lauded as examples of Welsh leadership in the Senedd whilst simultaneously being ineffective outside the legislature.
As we rapidly approach what looks to be a hugely consequential election for Wales in May 2026, every party should be asking themselves how they intend to better implement existing laws across the care sector. Many of the aims and objectives set out in existing laws are good, and – if properly implemented and enforced – will have the positive impact intended on people’s lives across Wales.
It will require a different kind of radicalism and boldness to solve these challenges, without filling manifestos with a long list of legislation to be hurriedly hurled through the legislative sausage factory over the next four years. Think of the potential:
- Unpaid carers being valued, supported and able to live a good life alongside care;
- Greater pay for tens of thousands of paid social care workers, capturing the spirit of fair work and benefitting the wider Welsh economy;
- Affordable childcare, reaching the people who need it most and giving children and families the boost needed to make the best possible start in life.
There’s an undeniable moral case that we owe it to our care sector – and the people it supports – to ensure that when the Care Policy Scorecard returns in future, progress has been made. Beyond the moral obligation is the reality that these challenges are likely to become more difficult to address as time goes on.
Wales has an ageing population; demand for care is increasing, and becoming more complex. Addressing these issues as an urgent priority may require additional resources and capacity now, but will deliver dividends down the line in the form of savings to the public purse and a care sector that is fit for the future as well as the here and now.
There’s no time to waste: Wales’s care sector needs action today.
