Directors blame disjointed policy and onerous inspection for high turnover rates

A report by leadership body The Staff College highlights that the DCS is a “critical leadership role” for a council yet is one of the hardest chief officer positions to fill and retain, with an average tenure of just three years.

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The college, which consulted more than 100 current and former DCSs for the report, concluded that a range of factors are to blame for the high churn in children’s leadership positions.

DCSs pointed to disjointed communications across central government departments as resulting in a “lack of coherent policy focus for children” which in turn increases workload.

One DCS said: “There is no home for children in government at present…it is spread across several departments.”

Respondents said that the different departments do not join up or talk to one another, and that central government should consider plans to assist partnership working in order to ease challenges this creates for leaders in children’s services.

The report adds that DCSs also “spoke vividly of their frustrations with the Department for Education” in particular, saying there was a perceived lack of understanding from the DfE around the challenges faced by children’s services.

One DCS said: “Policy stops us from doing things effectively and these frustrations take away the joy of the job.”

An “overload” of different external inspections in children’s services was also highlighted by directors as a factor in the high turnover rate.

“DCS respondents asserted that the ‘destructive inspection regime, poorly delivered’ was a major cause of frustration and damage, causing some DCSs to leave their posts early,” the reports states.

The Leading for Longer report makes a number of recommendations to government to improve recruitment and retention of DCSs.

These include reducing silo-working to tackle the negative effects of multiple departments generating different policies and increasing workload, and making the inspection regime more proportionate for children’s services.

Chief executive of The Staff College, Jane Parfrement, said: “The ability to recruit and retain a high quality DCS who brings stability and effective leadership is one of the single biggest determinants in whether a Local Authority’s children’s service thrives. There are numerous external pressures on the DCS role these are clearly articulated in this report along with recommendations.”

The report also details a number of other contributing factors to the high turnover of DCSs, including poor succession planning, the need for more structured mentoring, and insufficient recruitment of those from diverse backgrounds.

Rachael Wardell, chair of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) workforce development policy committee, said: “ADCS has long called for a clear vision for children and plan for childhood backed by a cross government commitment and funding from the Treasury to enable all children to thrive.”