Timpson announces extra £70m for innovation programme

Speaking at the National Children’s and Adult Services Conference in Manchester, Timpson said cash available for the innovation programme, launched in October last year, will be increased to £100m over its lifetime.

The programme was initially launched with £30m of funding available for 2014/15, but Timpson had previously promised that more would follow if the ideas put forward merited it.

Timpson said the Department for Education had decided to up the amount of funding because of the “inspiring, adventurous and imaginative ideas” put forward by the near-300 bids submitted so far, half of which have which have been from local authorities.

He said: “Having seen many of these bids, you’re doing this with flair and ambition.

“With the funding and support we’re providing and the freedom to delegate social care functions to not-for-profit organisations, there’s never been a better time for innovation.

“Don’t let things get in your way – we need you to come up with ideas that break the mould.”

Timpson said so far four bids have been successful.

A further 60 schemes have been shortlisted for funding and will find out if they have been successful in the next two weeks.

The four successful bids so far are:

• The London Tri-borough of Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea
• The Pause Project in Hackney
• North Yorkshire County Council’s No Wrong Door project
• The Signs of Safety initiative headed by Professor Eileen Munro

Timpson said the Tri-borough will receive £4m to help it “completely redesign” how it delivers children’s social care “from top to bottom”, with the aim of allowing professionals to spend more time with children and families and basing practice in greater expertise and evidence.

The Hackney-based Pause Project, which helps women who have had successive children taken into care will be given £3m to expand the programme to other authorities.

North Yorkshire Council’s No Wrong Door project will receive £2m to develop better care in the community for around 700 looked-after children.

And Eileen Munro’s Signs of Safety initiative will receive £4.8m to work with 10 local authorities – Wakefield, Norfolk, West Sussex, Brent, Suffolk, Tower Hamlets, Leicestershire, Wokingham, Bristol and Lincolnshire – to “rethink processes, reporting structures and systems so that social workers can work more intensively with families”.