With a population of nearly 500,000, Liverpool is the sixth largest city in England. It also has a young population, with around 20 per cent aged 18 or under.
The city was blighted by economic depression in the latter part of the 20th century, but has seen significant growth in the past 20 years and the unemployment rate is low at 4.74 per cent. Despite this, around one in four children live in poverty and rates of parental mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence are high. The city also has high levels of asylum-seeking children due to the location of an asylum reception centre.
Joe Anderson, the city's mayor since 2012, has raised concerns about the funding challenges the council is facing. In October 2017, Steve Reddy became director of children's services (DCS) and, in July, Ofsted judged them as "requires improvement".
DCS view: Council to build more homes that meet the needs of foster carers
By Steve Reddy, DCS, Liverpool City Council
I worked at Merseyside Police and Liverpool University before getting a job in adult services at Liverpool City Council. I collected responsibilities and ended up as assistant director of adult social care, before moving to Warrington where I became director of people and deputy chief executive. Much of my time was spent on children's services, so when the DCS job in Liverpool came up, I thought this was the perfect role.
I was co-lead of the North West DCS group, so knew Liverpool children's services was going through a tough time.
Level of demand is driving the issue - there are 1,200 looked-after children; a city authority of our size will have around 800. Our per head of looked-after children rate is much higher than say Leeds or Nottingham. We had a £7m overspend last year which the council covered and continues to support and invest in, but has challenged us to find a strategy to manage demand. A shortage of in-house capacity and the cost of external providers are issues.
We are encouraging people to come up with invest-to-save ideas to help us manage demand. One of those is the council's housing company, which has just been established. I have a list of "asks" of the company, including offering existing foster carers or those who want to foster new homes or support to create an extra room. The company could also offer lots of opportunities for young people, such as care leavers getting involved in building the houses. There is a target to build 10,000 houses across the community, both new build and refurbishment.
In Warrington, I got an understanding about what makes people want to work and stay in an authority. The staff in Liverpool are capable of outstanding work but were under too much pressure, so early in my tenure we made some changes. We recruited two ASYE support officers and created a new support programme for newly qualified staff; we accelerated the rollout of phones and tablets to allow social workers to work more efficiently; we have regular staff briefings and a staff newsletter was introduced that recognises positive work people are doing; and importantly for some of our teams, we struck a deal with a supermarket for staff to use its car park.
We also contracted Quality Assured Projects to provide two teams of social workers to take 180 cases off the case loads. They manage them and close cases where possible. We will use them for six months while we recruit new staff.
We believe a pathway to "good" within two years is achievable. We're not there yet, and we're undertaking a wholesale review of children's services because I know we have work not being done in the right places structurally.
We're in the process of appointing an assistant director for education. Many authorities suffered because they thought school improvement is not our thing any more, but you do need someone who leads on education, so we are bringing that post back.
