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Staff of the Children’s Society in Wales want to create a new charity to replace services lost by the society's decision to pull out of the principality, writes Alex Dobson.

They announced their intention after a five-hour meeting. Staff fear that redundancy notices could be served as soon as January with many project contracts due to end in March.

Maria Battle, policy officer of The Children’s Society Cymru, said: "The staff of the Children’s Society Cymru, met and have unanimously decided to fight to preserve the work of The Children’s Society Cymru as a whole.

"We do not want individual services or projects to be cherry-picked off from the group, as we believe in the foundation of an independent social justice organisation in partnership with the Church in Wales," she said.

The staff’s decision to try to continue with their work is likely to be boosted by the decision by the Archbishop of the Church in Wales, the most Reverend Rowan Williams, who has resigned from his post as vice president of the society, to set up a fund that provides an avenue for money raised in Wales for children to stay in Wales.

Staff are also pointing out that the cost of the Children’s Society’s decision to withdraw from the principality is likely to be in the region of at least £1.3 million, and they are asking for a commitment from the charity to be given that money to help them continue their work.

Battle said: "This would allow it to be spent far more constructively than on a closure operation, and would be a substantial gesture of goodwill towards the children and young people of Wales."

Welsh assembly minister, Jane Hutt, who has responsibility for social services, has set up a taskforce that will look at ways to try of salvaging the work currently carried out by the society, which will report back in the New Year.

In a statement to the Welsh Assembly, Hutt said: "The Children’s Society currently has 14 projects and a staff of 122 in Wales. The work includes advocacy, participation, family group conferencing and anti-poverty work.

"The advocacy projects operate in 13 local authority areas. One third of the society's funding in Wales is from voluntary income and two thirds from external sources. The Welsh Assembly makes a considerable contribution to the activities of the society, with local authorities supporting many of the projects out of the grant they receive from the assembly, through Children First, the Children and Youth Partnership Fund, and the society also works in partnership with dioceses of the Church in Wales."

She added: "I have asked Children in Wales, as the umbrella body representing the statutory and voluntary children's sectors, to convene a taskforce to report early in the New Year. The objectives are to secure suitable and practical arrangements to continue the services, and to retain the skills of the staff currently employed."

The chairperson of the taskforce will be Christine Walby, currently a trustee of Children in Wales and a research fellow of University of Wales Swansea, who has experience in both the statutory and the voluntary sector.

Hutt told the assembly that many people in Wales have cause to feel let down by the society’s decision to pull-out: "The decision was disgraceful and we will not take it lying down."