Children's leaders left 'puzzled' by calls to remove DCS duty on councils
Derren Hayes
Monday, May 26, 2014
Local authority chief executives' group says the requirement for a director of children's services is stifling innovation in children's services and isolating it from the rest of local government - arguments that don't stack up, say leaders.
With debate currently raging over who should manage, commission and deliver statutory children's social care in the future, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (Solace) picked an opportune time to set out its stall for reforming council children's services.
Its report, Reclaiming children's services, outlines the problems facing local authorities in meeting the increasing demands on children's services from rising needs and central government policy, all at a time when resources are shrinking. It identifies what councils are doing to try to cope with this perfect storm and then explains what needs to change to "reclaim children's services" from Whitehall mandarins and Westminster politicians.
All but one of the report's 12 recommendations (see box) are, according to Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) analysis, "unexceptional" - the exception being the suggestion that duties enshrined in the Children Act 2004 requiring local authorities to have a director of children's services (DCS) and children's lead member should be removed.
Solace says such a move is necessary to give councils "the flexibility they need to ensure the most effective leadership of children and families". It concludes this can be best achieved by giving chief executives the option of aligning council senior management to fit the changing service landscape locally.
Greater flexibility
To substantiate this, it highlights how national initiatives, such as the Troubled Families programme, are widening the range of services that work with children, young people and families to incorporate professionals outside of the children's directorate. In addition, the advent of health and wellbeing boards and transfer of public health responsibilities to local government have led to greater joint-working with health services.
While Solace acknowledges this is already taking place within the confines of the existing arrangements, it believes greater flexibility over structures and leadership across children's services would enhance outcomes further and make provision more efficient and cost-effective.
The report says: "This is about taking the next step from collaboration toward shared budgets, shared commissioning and shared outcomes. Whether the focus is on safeguarding, youth unemployment or supporting young people with SEN - integration will be essential to delivering more joined-up, effective support. However, we believe that the time for relatively small-scale pilots and programmes has passed. The case for transformation has been made and we need a radical step up in scope, scale and ambition."
However, this assessment is not shared by the LGiU, which points to the "broad range of different arrangements" used to fulfil the DCS and lead member duties as evidence that "current requirements are clearly not inhibiting local authorities".
It is a view shared by the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS).
Joint working barriers
"There is much in the report that directors would commend, but the analysis doesn't lead to the conclusion of changing the role of the DCS as envisaged," says ADCS vice-president Alison O'Sullivan.
She says there is "no evidence" that Children Act duties are holding back joint working across children's health and social care. "It implies it is a barrier to joint working, but that doesn't stop it (child wellbeing) being everybody's business."
O'Sullivan agrees that councils need to have the flexibility to fit management arrangements around local circumstances, but says that already exists.
"A single point of accountability is really important. Accountability needs to be absolutely clear and operate in a meaningful and consistent way. That's what the current guidance on the DCS role sets out.
"There's a variety of ways it is arranged in councils, but I don't think that takes away from how accountable they are."
O'Sullivan combines her DCS role at Kirklees Council alongside adult services responsibilities, a trend that has grown in recent years.
"You currently have a lot of 'twin hatters'," she says. "But there's not one size fits all and it does change over time. In Yorkshire and Humber, a lot of experienced DCSs retired, so chief executives decided to combine the (DCS) role or split it down."
Hilary Emery, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, agrees that there needs to be a single person accountable for children's services.
"If the legislation is the problem, then that can be addressed through the government's Children's Social Care Innovation programme.
"We have sufficient flexibility in the existing framework by the look of things, so why pull up the plant by its roots? It is puzzling."
Solace argues that accountability for children's services could even rest with council chief executives, a notion dismissed by children's services consultant John Freeman.
"You need people in local authorities to exercise leadership on universal education (admissions, planning, standards, special needs), on social care and on safeguarding. Without a DCS, it could not be done, and the chief executive is too busy with too much else," he adds.
Freeman uses the example of the new special educational needs code of practice to illustrate why there is the need for both a DCS and chief executive to have input on children's services.
"The code includes lots of 'local authorities must' and much of that is in the context of leading strategic partnerships with clinical commissioning groups - that's not operational but strategic.
"In my view, the chief executive needs to work closely with the DCS on these issues - if they have not, it's because of a failure of chief executives as much as of DCSs," he adds.
The "symbolic" nature of the DCS role in "holding local authorities and other agencies to account" is why Annie Hudson, chief executive of the College of Social Work, is sceptical about the Solace proposals.
Retaining expertise
However, she does believe there needs to be more consistency nationally about accountability in children's services.
"In social work, it is very important that there is a clear line of sight from individual practitioner's actions to someone else higher up. The DCS role has changed and we need flexibility, but having clear accountability and responsibility is really important," she adds.
Social work academic Ray Jones fears that it is not only accountability that would be lost if councils were given the option of doing away with the DCS role.
The professor of social work at Kingston University says taken in conjunction with the government's proposals to allow councils to outsource children's social care services could result in a knowledge vacuum in children's services departments.
He says: "The proposals to remove the DCS requirement on the basis of wanting whole system opportunities for children...
opens up the possibility that there would be no one at the top of local government with a background in children's social work.
"If that should happen, the council won't have the expertise or wisdom to know what it is contracting. The role could be with a contracts manager with knowledge of roads or street cleaning contracting, but no understanding of children's social services and child protection.
"All the power would lay with those delivering the contract. They would become increasingly powerful as the council loses its expertise."
Solace recommendations
- The sector needs to develop new models to facilitate multi-agency working and bind all local partners into the process of safeguarding and protecting vulnerable children and young people
- A national debate about what is expected from children's social care and other professionals is needed
- Government and the sector need to co-produce a new, simplified accountability system that allows local authorities to scrutinise and hold all schools to account
- Councils need to use their democratic mandate and "informal power" to champion high-quality education for all children and young people in their area
- Local authorities need to be given clear routes to influence their local skills system, and funding and support for youth unemployment should be devolved
- The sector and government should collaborate on a programme of workforce reform, including a next stage social work reform programme
- The sector needs to develop clearer mechanisms for identifying struggling services and councils earlier and invest in properly resourced improvement mechanisms
- The sector and government should collaborate on the design of a new assurance system
- The sector needs to develop new, integrated programmes of training and personal development for children's services and corporate leaders (both managerial and political)
- Government should remove the current statutory requirements around the director of children's services role to allow local authorities the flexibility they need to ensure the most effective leadership of children and families issues
- The sector, government and regulators need to undertake a wider discussion about the nature and extent to which deregulation would help councils to best support children and young people
- Local authorities must be enabled to innovate, to define for themselves what 'good' looks like and to shape their localities into places where all children are safe, happy and able to pursue ambitions
- Instability in the children's services workforce needs addressing, say social work experts
- One of the main reasons Solace has come to the conclusion it is necessary to change leadership structures in children's services is the high turnover of staff in children's social care departments, from senior management level down to the frontline.
- It cites the short career span of children's social workers, high vacancy rates across social care and soaring turnover of directors of children's services as evidence of instability bordering on "a national crisis".
- To combat the problem, Solace is calling for a workforce reform programme alongside a "national conversation" on what is expected from children's social care. In terms of leadership, it highlights the paucity of middle managers in children's services, with this being the most concerning workforce issue in the sector, according to Solace members.
- National Children's Bureau chief executive Hilary Emery says the problem stems from a failure to offer middle managers better support and professional development around honing leadership skills.
- "It doesn't join the two up as it could do," she says. Another factor is that there are less opportunities now than a decade ago for cross-organisation working and leadership training programmes for middle managers due to service cuts, she adds.
- "If these managers don't understand different roles and areas, they are not going to make the links between services. Career paths need to have that in mind as practitioners become leaders and managers."
- Emery adds that problems in middle management could be a factor behind the high turnover of frontline practitioners. "If you have good leadership and managers, your retention is going to be better. Strong supervision will retain more people."
- Solace also highlights the difficulty councils face in keeping social work professionals out of the clutches of agencies that can offer "a better salary and work/life balance".
- Annie Hudson, chief executive of The College of Social Work (TCSW), backs Solace's call for a review of what society expects children's social work to do, with this being linked to how the profession is viewed in the mainstream media.
- She says three key issues must be addressed: "We need to build on what has happened - to extract maximum value from new architecture in social work, eg TCSW and chief social worker; take stock of the government's responses to the reviews into social work training; and we need a really clear and nationally agreed framework for continuing professional development."