Children's Directors warn of accountability deficit as councils merge management roles

The Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) has warned against the dilution of the Director of Children's Services role after a survey commissioned by the organisation found that a third of councils were considering merging the post with other director-level functions.

Among the options being considered by councils include merging the role with the Director of Adult Service and including responsibility for other service areas, including housing and leisure, as well as splitting the responsibility for children's social care and education.

Matt Dunkley, President of the ADCS warned that merging or expanding the role ran contrary to the recommendations of the Munro Review, which warned against expanding the remit of directors' role' beyond children's social care and education.

“We can no longer take it for granted that every local authority in England will have a Director of Children’s Services as described in the legislation, with sole responsibility for education and children’s social care,” he said.

“It is understandable that, with budgets under pressure across public services, local authorities are looking for ways to focus their resources on the frontline by reviewing the role and number of senior managers and local authorities must have the freedom to decide the structures that best reflects the needs of their communities.

“However, it is vitally important is that local authorities ask themselves serious questions about these arrangements,” he said. “Does this strengthen or dilute accountability for the outcomes achieved by children and young people locally and is this clear to local residents? Is the "spine of accountability" for Children's safeguarding clear and transparent? Does it provide directors and lead members with the levers they need to build excellent services for families?”

The survey of 58 local authorities also found that many local authorities were reducing senior and middle management roles and seeking to outsource back-office services, leading to concerns about the loss of specialist skills and a lack of accountability in relations to commissioned services not directly provided by the local authority.

“There has been a lot of pressure on local authorities to focus on “back office” services when  making reductions to their budgets.  This survey shows that within children’s services this has certainly been the focus of efforts to cut costs, but that these reductions do carry risks in the  quality of support being offered. Similarly Directors are clear that restructuring or moving to commissioning or shared services with other local authorities may not produce the savings  required and cannot be the only answer. It is clear that these are long term solutions and will not remove the necessity to make some very difficult decisions about reductions to funding of frontline services.”

The requirement to employ a Director of Children's Services was created by the Children's Act 2004. The statutory guidance relating to the responsibilities of Children's Services Directors is presently under review by the government.