Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014

184Research and provision of information

(1)The Welsh Ministers may conduct, commission, or assist in the conduct of, research into any matter connected with—

(a)their functions under this Act,

(b)the functions mentioned in subsection (12),

(c)the functions of Local Health Boards under this Act, or

(d)the functions of Safeguarding Boards.

(2)A local authority may conduct, commission, or assist in the conduct of, research into any matter connected with—

(a)any of its functions that are mentioned in subsection (12), or

(b)the functions of Safeguarding Boards.

(3)A Local Health Board may conduct, commission, or assist in the conduct of, research into any matter connected with its functions under this Act.

(4)The Welsh Ministers may require a local authority to provide them with information in connection with—

(a)the performance by the authority of any of its functions that are mentioned in subsection (12), and

(b)the persons in relation to whom the authority has exercised those functions.

(5)The Welsh Ministers may require a Local Health Board to provide them with information in connection with—

(a)the performance of its functions under this Act, and

(b)the persons in relation to whom it has exercised those functions.

(6)The Welsh Ministers may require the lead partner of a Safeguarding Board to provide them with information in connection with the performance by that Board of its functions.

(7)The Welsh Ministers may require a voluntary organisation to provide them with information in connection with adults accommodated by the organisation or on its behalf.

(8)A requirement under subsection (4), (5), (6) or (7) must be complied with by providing the information in such form and at such time as the Welsh Ministers may require.

(9)Information required to be provided under subsection (4) may include information relating to and identifying individual children, but only if that information is needed to inform—

(a)the review and development of policy and practice relating to the well-being of children, or

(b)the conduct of research relating to the well-being of children.

(10)The Welsh Ministers must in each year lay before the National Assembly for Wales a summary of the information provided to them under subsections (4), (5), (6) and (7), but the summary must not include information that identifies an individual child or allows an individual child to be identified.

(11)In this section—

• “the lead partner of a Safeguarding Board” (“partner arweiniol Bwrdd Diogelu”) is the Safeguarding Board partner specified as the lead partner in regulations under section 134, and

• “Safeguarding Board” (“Bwrdd Diogelu”) means a Safeguarding Children Board or a Safeguarding Adults Board established under section 134.

(12)The functions referred to in subsections (1), (2) and (4) are—

(a)any function of a local authority under this Act;

(b)any function of a local authority as a local mental health partner under the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010.