Director and lead member guidance boosts local accountability

Children’s services departments across the country have for many months now been changing shape. Fuelled in part by the need to cut costs by about a quarter in most local authorities, children’s directorates have been restructuring at a pace.

There are now more joint directors of children’s and adult services, plus new directors of people and place. England also has its first director of children’s services covering three local authorities, with Andrew Christie heading provision at Hammersmith & Fulham, Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea councils since September.

The government committed to reviewing the roles and duties of directors of children’s services and lead members for children’s services last year to reflect these changes – in part to ensure local accountability for children and young people would not be watered down by new arrangements.

That guidance has now been published. While it allows for local flexibility in determining structures, it makes clear that councils must appoint a single officer and an elected member each responsible for both education and children’s social care.

And it states that directors and lead members should each have an integrated children’s services brief, so that the safety and the educational, social and emotional needs of children and young people are central to local services.
The guidance is already having an impact. Wokingham Borough Council decided to backtrack on a senior management overhaul that would have seen its director of children’s services also serve as interim chief executive, after realising that the plans contravened the new guidelines.

Below, two directors of children’s services and two lead members set out their views.

Debbie Jones, director of children's services, London Borough of Lambeth, and president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services:
"The revised statutory guidance on the role of the director of children’s services and lead member has much to recommend it.

"The guidance is shorter and clearer than its predecessor. The emphasis on the scope and breadth of the role is retained: local authorities have a clear role with schools as well as children’s social care; this should be overseen by a single officer who reports to the chief executive; and local authorities should consider carefully when allocating additional responsibilities to the director of children’s services.

"In reiterating these important points, the guidance allows for local decision-making on structures and management arrangements by requiring a test of assurance. Whatever the arrangements, there must be a single line of accountability from the frontline to the senior management team for education and children’s social care services delivered by the local authority.

"This will also require every local authority to consider how they can continue to influence and shape partnerships with other agencies, and with schools, including academies, to secure better outcomes for children and young people.
When comparing this revised guidance with the version from 2009, there are fewer words, but little has changed in ?essence. This is to be welcomed after a period of uncertainty and turbulence in which the role of the director of children’s services itself had been called into question.

"This guidance makes it clear that the role of the director of children’s services as we know it is here to stay."

Andrew Webb, director of services to people, Stockport Council:
"The guidance is more succinct and clarifies some issues around flexibility, so is better suited to how ?councils have evolved since the last guidance was issued.

"It emphasises the single line of accountability across children’s services, with both educational excellence being given priority and safeguarding. There has to be that single point which brings together a child focus rather than an institutional focus.

"The guidance acknowledges that local authorities are all very different. In a small- or medium-sized authority, it is possible to configure services in a way that focuses on population needs. In a larger authority, it is more difficult for the same level of understanding of needs to be held by one person. It is possible to set up structures that take account of that, but it may mean a slightly more remote approach.

"One of the key points of the guidance is that any structure should not be too remote – the director of children’s services needs regular means of staying in touch with children, families and schools, rather ?than just supervising and leading wider systems.

"I manage a director of adult social services. I also have someone dealing with commissioning and public health, someone dealing with children’s safeguarding and someone dealing with schools. There is a very solid range of leadership skills and knowledge within my team, which enables me to carry the two roles.

"However, as an individual director of children’s services, you have to be satisfied that you can discharge your duties effectively."

Mark Versallion, lead member for children’s services, Central Bedfordshire Council:
"Of all the different lead member roles in local government, the lead member for children’s services is the one that has the most statutory importance placed upon it.

"This new guidance clarifies and strengthens the statutory duties of lead members. In Central Bedfordshire, we are following the guidance already, but I am grateful for the robustness of the document.

"It means that when I’m talking to my political colleagues and when our director of children’s services is talking to her officer colleagues, we can cite the guidance and explain how seriously government is taking our duties. That gives us credibility and helps us internally when we are working with our colleagues and arguing the case for our directorate.

"From time to time, I am still asked the question as to whether we should split responsibility for education and children’s social care. I don’t think that is a good idea and the guidance helps to strengthen that argument so that we can tell people we all need to be taking a holistic and integrated approach to children’s services.

"We can rely on the fact that the statutory thinking is to integrate services further. The guidance will help children’s services directorates up and down the country who are part of local authorities that are going through huge change, mainly driven by the need to find efficiencies.

"One of the main reasons this should be welcomed is that it gives them something ?to back their argument for investment in children’s services."

David Simmonds, lead member for children’s services, London Borough of Hillingdon, and chair of the Local Government ?Association’s children and young people board:
"The new guidance does not change a great deal for councils who are already implementing good practice, but it does enshrine the importance of clear managerial and political accountability within councils.

"It helps to clarify the position of councils going forward with health and wellbeing boards, the relationship with the family courts and the relationship between councils and local safeguarding boards. The important thing is that helps to clarify those clear lines of accountability at a local level.

"The lead member and the director of children’s services will continue to be champions for educational standards. There is no question over the importance of that role, but the guidance is sensibly not specific about how that must be done, so different councils will be able to approach that in different ways, depending on local circumstances. If most of the schools in a local area are academies, as the majority of secondary schools in Hillingdon are, that may suggest a different relationship from a large county where the majority of schools are local authority-maintained.

"In Hillingdon, we have a joint director of children’s and adults services who is responsible for social care and we have a chief education officer who is responsible for the relationship with schools and ensuring high standards. The guidance does not suggest that there would need to be any change to that structure. That is a good thing, because councils need to adapt their structures all the time to adapt to changes in local circumstances."


Statutory guidance for children’s services chiefs