DfE hands council £9.6m to establish children's services 'centre of excellence'
Gabriella Jozwiak
Friday, February 24, 2017
A council has been awarded £9.6m from the Department for Education's innovation fund to set up a national centre to teach other local authorities how to improve practice.
Leeds City Council will use the money, the largest amount ever awarded under the social care innovation fund, to establish a centre of excellence that will focus on spreading best practice in its strongest areas of work - leadership, restorative practice, and its "front door" contact system.
Over the three-year funding period, the authority will also use part of the cash to build on existing restorative work.
It will build on pilot restorative early support teams that work with families who are facing more complex challenges, with the aim of eventually extending them to all neighbourhoods of the city.
It will also expand its restorative adolescent service which, in partnership with the NHS, offers support and information about emotional wellbeing and mental health issues. The innovation funding will be used to recruit leading practitioners and additional experts and specialists in key areas such as psychology and speech and language therapy.
Leeds is one of the DfE's "partners in practice" authorities - local authorities deemed to be performing at an exceptional level that other councils can learn from.
In 2015 the council received an overall "good" rating from Ofsted for children's services, with its leadership, management and governance rated as "outstanding".
Leeds City Council director of children's services Steve Walker said the authority's success in supporting children and families was due to it having strong partnerships with schools, GPs and third sector organisations.
"Children live in families and communities, and this funding will help us to strengthen our resources and the support available in local areas to ensure that families get the support they need at the earliest possible time," he said.
The council's lead member for children and families Lisa Mulherin said that despite cuts to government finance, the authority had retained all its children's centres in the city, its youth service and a school improvement service.
"Investing in children saves money for tax payers later in life," she said.
Leeds is the second largest local authority in the country, with a population of 180,000 children. Over the past six years it has reduced the number of children in care in the area by more than 15.5 per cent, compared with a national increase of 8.6 per cent.
The innovation fund was initially announced by children's minister Edward Timpson in 2013. It is worth a total of £200m for the four-year period 2016 to 2020.
Leeds has previously received backing from the fund, having secured £4.8m from the programme in 2015 to improve children's social care services.