Care Inspectorate Wales concludes assurance check of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council children's services
Merthyr Tydfil's children's services benefit from compassionate leadership and a motivated workforce, but the voice of the child is not yet consistently heard in practice and further work is needed to strengthen assessment quality and threshold application.
We have recently completed an assurance check of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council's children's services. The assurance check, which took place between 18 and 20 May 2026, assessed the local authority's performance in exercising its duties and functions in line with legislation.
Overall, we found a service with clear strategic direction, compassionate leadership and a stable, motivated workforce. However, these foundations are not yet consistently reflected in frontline practice.
Key strengths identified
Nearly all staff would recommend working for children’s services. Leadership is compassionate and visible, with a clear prevention-led direction and an explicit focus on hearing the voice of people. Practitioners describe an open culture where leaders are receptive to new ideas, including the introduction of the Social Work Way App, which supports practitioners to work more efficiently.
Practitioners mostly comply with statutory timescales for visiting, core groups, conferences, and reviews. There is consistent evidence of multi-agency involvement and contributions to care planning arrangements.
Practitioners are person-centred, psychologically informed and systemic in their approach. Chronologies and genograms are used routinely to build a foundational understanding of the child within their family and wider context over time. Practitioners receive consistent supervision and frequent opportunities for reflection, including systemic practice sessions that promote constructive challenge and shared learning.
The Early Help Hub provides accessible, respectful and responsive support, and a range of prevention and early intervention services use trauma-informed, relationship-based approaches to support families and reduce escalation of need. Strengthened partnership arrangements have improved corporate parenting and support for children with complex needs, and fewer children are entering the local authority's care.
Areas for improvement
Safeguarding thresholds are not being applied consistently in practice, and there was limited awareness of the revised threshold policy. Whilst most people receive a proportionate response to need, a minority do not receive sufficient professional curiosity or respectful uncertainty. The local authority must ensure thresholds are applied consistently and that decision-making is supported by a robust analysis of risk and need.
The voice of the child is not consistently heard or recorded in case records, assessments and reviews. This is a particular concern for adolescents and large sibling groups, where children are not always seen alone or recorded in their own words. The local authority should work with practitioners to promote consistent standards for capturing children's lived experiences.
Advocacy is not consistently offered to all eligible children and parents, particularly where there are safeguarding concerns or disagreements about care planning. The local authority must ensure the active offer of advocacy is consistently made, with clear recording of offers, uptake and reasons for decline.
Record quality requires improvement. While practitioners keep regular contact records, these are not consistently written to a sufficient standard, and important decision-making forums are not always recorded in a timely way. The local authority must improve the quality of records to support effective oversight, decision-making and accountability.
Assessment quality is variable, with insufficient focus on parenting capacity, motivation to change, and safety planning. There is also inconsistency in how practitioners apply systemic practice to risk assessment and safeguarding decision-making. The local authority should improve the quality of analysis in assessments and plans to ensure there is a clear link between risk, harm, strengths, safety, and outcomes.
Regional multi-agency arrangements to respond to non-familial harm and child exploitation require further development, and statutory leaders should strengthen practitioner understanding of adolescent development and challenge the use of labelling language.
Next steps
We have asked Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to consider the areas identified for improvement and take appropriate action. We will monitor progress through our ongoing performance review activity, and a further improvement check will be scheduled within 12 to 18 months. Where relevant, we expect the local authority to share the positive practice identified with other local authorities across Wales.
Read the full findings in the report: