Government treats troubleshooting DCSs 'like football managers'
Gabriella Jozwiak
Friday, August 2, 2013
The government treats directors of children's services (DCS) it appoints to struggling local authorities like football managers, a children's services expert has suggested.
The co-director of the Social Research Unit at Dartington, Michael Little, said the government was not giving DCSs enough time to turn around failing departments.
His comments followed the news last month that Birmingham City Council DCS Peter Duxbury had left the authority suddenly, just 15 months after he was parachuted in by the government to sort out long-standing problems.
Little had been advising Duxbury as part of an expert group created by the DCS that met every two months to drive improvements at the authority.
While Little said he did not know the details of Duxbury’s departure or what role the Department for Education had played in it, he suggested Duxbury was moved on because he was not producing results fast enough.
“What I saw was progress, but it was slow,” said Little. “In the end, these things are not to do with individuals, but people like to blame them – people like Sharon Shoesmith or the director in Birmingham,” he suggested, referring to the London Borough of Haringey’s former DCS at the time of the Baby Peter tragedy and who was subsequently sacked following pressure from then children's minister Ed Balls.
“Failures are to do with system dynamics,” he continued. “Duxbury was trying to manage that and I’m sure he was managing it, but presumably he didn’t manage it fast enough.
“It’s a bit like football management these days. You get a year to take your team to the premiership and if you fail, you get fired.”
A Birmingham City Council statement said the decision to part company with Duxbury was made “by mutual agreement”. It has temporarily installed strategic director for adults and communities Peter Hay to oversee children’s services until it makes a decision about what happens next.
The authority’s history of failure stretches back to 2008 when a seven-year-old known to social services died of starvation.
In an interview with CYP Now in April, Duxbury said he was determined to see “significant improvement” in the council’s social work department within a year.
