Editorial: You have to be inside the tent to influence decisions

31 March 2014 Derren Hayes Youth services Editorial

The decision by children's minister Edward Timpson to commission what amounts to a feasibility study into the widespread outsourcing of struggling children's services represents the thin end of the wedge (news roundup, p5). While the study is linked directly to the future of children's social care in Birmingham, the fact it has one eye on developing alternative delivery models that can be applied elsewhere means the government is determined to make it easier for councils to outsource services if they are deemed to be failing.

Ofsted's tougher social care inspection regime makes it likely that more children's services will receive "inadequate" judgments and so be looking for solutions. Who's to say that outsourcing will only be considered for failing areas? The silver lining for children's services is that the study has sector leaders at its core: new Association of Directors of Children's Services president Alan Wood and chief children's social worker Isabelle Trowler. While both were involved in the reviews into Doncaster and Birmingham children's services, their central role in the study should ensure the sector has a hand in shaping the future. And as Wood himself says in our interview (p18), it is "much better for the ADCS to be involved in things, than not to be involved".

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