Thursday 4 November 2025
The Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Rocio Cifuentes MBE, has published a statement following the publication of the Child Practice Review related to Neil Foden.
Missed opportunities/thresholds
‘The report makes for harrowing reading and what is heart-breaking is not only the number of children who were abused by Foden, nor how long this went on for, but also the sheer number of opportunities that were missed to stop Foden’s abuse of children. Time and time again, children were not listened to; they were failed by people who should have acted and by institutions that should have protected them. Too many times, it was deemed that specific thresholds hadn’t been met to trigger effective action in response to complaints or concerns. We need to make sure that our safeguarding system enables and supports multi-agency working, professional curiosity, and that there are effective quality assurance mechanisms and a truly rights-based approach to safeguarding. My call on Welsh Government is to ensure the learning from this CPR and historic ones that have touched on the same issues, are taken into account when finalising updates to the Wales Safeguarding Procedures (section five).”
Consistent themes
“Themes like poor information sharing between agencies, poor record keeping, a lack of professional curiosity, inadequate training, and incoherent multi-agency responses have been repeated themes in child practice reviews. Their consistent presence should be a source of national shame, and to avoid further repeats of these failures, this report should be a real turning point in how the child protection system functions in Wales.’ . Since becoming Children’s Commissioner, I’ve repeatedly called on the Welsh Government to strengthen national safeguarding arrangements. To date, we have clearly failed to learn the lessons and implement the recommendations identified from previous reviews and I’m pleased my calls have been heeded by Government with its recently-announced national safeguarding review. The review of safeguarding governance arrangementsThis review must address these stubborn weaknesses and must progress with urgency.”
Elevating children’s voices
“Actively listening is essential in a children’s rights-based approach to safeguardingl. The fact the review has found that children’s experiences and points of view were not adequately considered is a huge systemic failure. Elevating children’s voices not only in national policies (which happened as a result of the Clywch Inquiry), but also in the practices of statutory bodies in Wales must be a key national priority, and an absolute minimum expectation, particularly when it comes to safeguarding issues.”
Governors
“School Governors have a crucial role to play in school life: both in holding school leadership to account, and in keeping children safe. Having recently called for a review of school governance, I welcome the Welsh Government’s announcement to review the role of governors – children need and deserve strong governing bodies who properly hold their head teachers to account, and have children’s wellbeing at the heart of their mission. We know this does not always happen and relies on individuals rather than a strong system. This has to change and I would expect the learning from this CPR to be reflected and form part of the Welsh Government’s review.”
Advice
“If you’re a child or young person worried about something in your school or home life that doesn’t feel right – there are people and organisations who will listen to you and help you. I have an Advice team who you can phone or email, and there are other people who can help like Childline, the NSPCC, and Meic.
If you’re an adult working with children and you’re worried that children in your care aren’t safe, it’s vital that you raise concerns. If those are not listened to, you must contact an external organisation. My office is a prescribed whistleblower, meaning that you will be protected by law if you raise concerns about your employer.”
Keeping children safe now
“The report has a comprehensive set of recommendations that must now lead not only to prompt change locally in Gwynedd, but to effective national change to child protection procedures in Wales. But many of the changes and ongoing reviews will take time. in the meantime, it is vital for this report to act as a stark reminder that all professionals working with and for children have a responsibility to keep children safe – to listen to children and to report any concern.”