Councils face being stripped of role running children's services: PM

Local authorities that fail to improve poorly performing children’s services could be stripped of their roles, the Prime Minister has announced.

David Cameron said that in cases where there had been persistent failure in the past, children's services would be taken over immediately. Sharper ‘triggers’ are also to be put in place so an emergency Ofsted inspection can be ordered where there are concerns about a local authority’s performance.

Under the proposals any local authority judged as inadequate by Ofsted has to show significant improvement within six months or be taken over.

High-performing local authorities, child protection experts and charities could meanwhile be brought in to turn around performance. These organisations could act as sponsors and form trusts to take over services, the PM said.

David Cameron added that Sunderland City Council’s children’s services are to become a voluntary trust immediately, while new service leaders are to be appointed at Norfolk and Sandwell councils.

A package of measures will also see a number of the country’s best performing local authorities working with the Government on the development of academy-style freedoms.

The councils involved in this project are North Yorkshire, Hampshire, Tri-borough (Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea), Leeds, Durham and Richmond & Kingston.

The Government’s measures also include:

• More than £100m to attract more high-calibre graduates into social work by expanding the Frontline and Step Up programmes;
• A drive to recruit new trust sponsors from the charity sector to help deliver innovative children’s services;
• An urgent review of Local Safeguarding Children Boards, to be led by Alan Wood, and centralisation of Serious Case Reviews to learn lessons from serious incidents;
• A new What Works Centre, to make sure social workers learn from the best practice in the country.

The Prime Minister said: “Children’s services support the most vulnerable children in our society. They are in our care; we, the state, are their parents; and we are failing them. It is our duty to put this right; to say poorly performing local authorities: improve, or be taken over. We will not stand by while children are let down by inadequate social services.

“This will be one of the big landmark reforms of this Parliament, as transformative as what we did in education in the last. And it shows how serious we are about confronting state failure and tackling some of the biggest social problems in our country. Together we will make sure that not a single child is left behind.”

Commenting on the Prime Minister’s announcements, Alison O’Sullivan, President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), said: “We recognise that in some areas services are not yet good enough and it is right that we draw on the expertise of the strongest authorities to safely unlock the skills and potential of the practice and corporate leaders working within it and within the wider children’s services sector. But there is more to improvement than simply changing structures.

“Parallel to this lies the need for increases in demand to be met with adequate financial resources. Even with the closure of many children's centres and youth services we still face a funding shortfall and we risk losing capacity in the system to prevent problems from escalating to a point beyond repair. This must be urgently addressed, we owe it to our children, to our young people and to their families.”

O'Sullivan warned that the six-month timescale for improvement was unrealistic. “Real, effective change cannot occur within six or in some cases even 12 months. And whilst it is essential to take steps to act quickly where failure is identified, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to remedying complex problems,” she said.

“Instead it is important to remember that structural change is expensive and takes time and energy to implement so should only be pursued when necessary. And we must take the time to find the right proportionate solution in each case so that where new models of delivering services are developed, they are able to improve whole systems.”

The ADCS President meanwhile warned that it was “inconceivable” that Serious Case Reviews could be conducted centrally.

“Whilst the centralisation of SCRs might improve consistency it could reduce opportunities for local learning if not handled properly. Currently when reviews are conducted by local agencies many boards have an inclusive approach which involves different professionals working together to understand what has happened and developing improved ways of working,” O'Sullivan said.

“As a learning community we must make sure that this is not lost in the move towards centralisation. We look forward to more details of this move and to sharing our views.”