Duty of optimism

Indeed the year has been scattered with sadness through the suffering and loss of colleagues, friends, families and some of the children we serve. 

I sit here tapping these words out on New Year’s Day, reflecting on what has happened and what the year ahead holds for us. One thing I know though, is that as leaders of this system we have to hold ourselves to our duty of optimism. And yes, there are things to be optimistic about – if only because there are a number of things that are reaching a critical mass which will lead to change in the next year or so.

The issues that we know about are of course; the Care Review, the SEND review, the levelling up agenda and local government, the unresolved refugee crisis, an Education white paper and the role of local authorities, the Covid response in the medium term, regaining good attendance by children at school and the staff shortages that we are beginning to see.

These are the known issues, and on their own they are a significant set of priorities for ADCS to get its teeth into this next year. But there are also a number of issues that are circulating that have the potential to come to the fore very quickly. 

Firstly, any optimism about the spending review settlement is quickly being disabused as our finance officers pick through the details and the knock-on effects of the impact on the current plans for adult social care on local government finances. It looks as if many more councils could be facing very big problems very quickly. 

Similarly, the lack of a coherent national children’s workforce strategy is beginning to loom large – and at what point do we need to look at private sector staffing agencies in the same way that we are beginning to look at the financial damage wrought by the private children’s home and SEN sector? There will also be further media fall-out from more tragic and complex cases. And whilst I understand the upset and distress that such cases cause, I can’t help but worry about the levels of anger and rage in public discourse – we will all have received those abusive communications in one form or another recently. 

There is also the issue of the rising tide of poor mental health amongst children and the lack of NHS resources being directed towards this – in particular the puzzling reduction in mental health beds at precisely the time when they are most needed – leading to a knock-on effect into the care system. There will be more things that come our way as well, the unknown unknowns.

All of which would be enough to drive you to despair except that there are real opportunities emerging to improve the systems that we lead. The response to Covid has demonstrated (if it needed demonstrating) the essential role that local authorities carry out and the indivisible link between place, people, local taxation, local democracy, and local services. I think that nexus is understood better in government than it has been for some time and gives me some cause for optimism about the forthcoming white paper on levelling up and local government reform. 

Similarly, the Education white paper might just provide an opportunity to rebalance the responsibilities of the local authority education services with powers, something we have been calling for for some time. 

The Care Review will also be reaching its conclusions and proposals. Many ADCS members will have contributed towards this thinking and as you will know, ADCS submitted its own response in the call for ideas.

Similarly, the SEND review will reach its conclusions and proposals. I dare say that neither of these reviews will make proposals that we entirely agree with – I’d be surprised if they did. But moving along both systems, from the current position that we are in, has the potential to be positive and to help achieve better outcomes for children – we need to engage positively with those proposals where we can. Obviously, I am not daft and I know that both have the potential to be catastrophic if handled badly but I see increasingly positive signs from both.

All of which means that we, as an association, will need to step into these spaces and advocate for sensible reforms, meaningful and considered change delivered at pace and with sufficient resource to ensure that those real changes can be delivered. 

That also means that we, as an association, will need to work even more closely together. The chairs of our policy committees are going to be critical for us in making our representations to government. 

If you are reading this now and are not a member of a policy committee then put yourself forward for one that interests you, the association is there to collect and represent all of our views and they are going to be vital in shaping our thinking in the next year. All of the policy committees are well supported by the brilliant ADCS policy staff team. Come and join in, in the spirit of optimism that we are all going to need this year.

Steve Crocker is vice president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), director of children’s services at Hampshire County Council and Isle of Wight Council. This blog was first published on the ADCS website.