Failing local authorities warned: ‘improve or face intervention'

Just before Christmas, the Prime Minister served notice of the government’s intention to take action over “failure” in children’s services.

In a speech that provided the detail to months of rhetoric about the need to improve the quality of services for looked-after children, David Cameron said that children’s services departments judged “inadequate” by Ofsted would have six months to improve or face intervention, initially with the appointment of an independent commissioner.

If councils still fail to improve, children’s social care services will be handed to “high performing local authorities, experts and charities” to run under the trust model already developed in Doncaster and Slough, with Sunderland due to follow. At the same time, children’s minister Edward Timpson announced the creation of two improvement initiatives aimed at drawing out and sharing best practice across children’s services. He also launched a review of local safeguarding children boards and serious case reviews (see box).

There are already three children’s services departments to have had an independent commissioner appointed. A further seven have had improvement notices served, while seven others have been graded “inadequate” by Ofsted recently (see table). This suggests more councils look set to have intervention measures applied as the year progresses.

Professor of social work at Kingston University Ray Jones says introducing structural change on such a wide scale would divert resources from the front line “at a time of great cuts in government spending”. He adds: “It would be very wise for the government to have some independent review of the time and cash implications of the changes it is introducing.

“It would also be sensible to check the impact that creating new service arrangements through trusts could have on multi-agency working.”

Kathy Evans, chief executive of Children England, says the timescales set by government for councils to improve are unrealistic.   

“There is no evidence a council can make itself over in six months,” she says. “A recent Impower study showed how difficult it is to get out of an inadequate grading. Expecting children’s services to be delivering exemplary practice while hitting funding is a set-up – it is nearly impossible to do.”

Evans also refutes the government’s suggestion that bringing in new management in the form of an independent trust will automatically improve struggling services.

“It is evasive to say it is a management problem – it is a funding problem,” she says. “You can create a new trust, but if the rest of the children’s services team is completely under-resourced, then what or who you’re managed by is irrelevant.”

As well as outlining tougher new measures for intervening with failing councils, the government announced two new initiatives to help all local authorities improve.

A “Partners in Practice” programme will identify high-performing councils to support those struggling to improve children’s social care services.

So far, the councils that have been selected as exemplars are North Yorkshire, Hampshire,
Tri-borough (Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea), Richmond and Kingston, Leeds and Durham.

North Yorkshire Council recently redesigned its residential and edge-of-care services, and has seen a 50 per cent rise in the number of young people it supports.

And the Tri-borough councils in London redesigned their children’s social care services to allow professionals to spend more time with children and their families.

A Department for Education spokeswoman says Partners in Practice is a “work-in-progress” and the role councils will play has not been fully decided upon yet. This will be discussed at an event to be hosted by Timpson later this month.

James Rook, managing director of Skylakes, a social work delivery firm, welcomes the programme.

“There are debates about whether local authorities should be supported by charities, the public sector or the private sector. But I don’t believe it should be about what entity is improving child protection – it should be a case of how,” he says.

“The support provided should be based on the innovative models that are proven to improve the quality of services to children at risk. The sharing of this good practice at a national level could be the catalyst for reforming services.”

Roy Perry, chairman of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, also welcomed the initiative, but warned that it will need to be properly resourced if it is to work.  

He says: “Across the country, social workers are striving to improve the lives of vulnerable children and work closely together to maximise expertise and knowledge.

“Where change is needed, learning from within the sector from the best councils is paramount. If extra external assistance is required, it must only be for a period of time to help bring a council back on its feet.

“It is right that the best performing councils are able to support those struggling. However, it is important that capacity and resources are fully provided, as transforming a hugely complex child protection system takes time and additional funding.”

Welcome intervention

Alison O’Sullivan, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, welcomes the intention to draw on the sector’s expertise for local authorities needing assistance.  

“There is a lot of work going on to improve things within local authorities already where there is collaboration at a regional level.

“We have a track record for local authorities assisting others and we know that local authority to local authority support is an effective way of helping.”

Timpson also announced a £20m investment to create a “What Works Centre” for children’s services. There are seven existing What Works Centres across public services – one of which is the Early Intervention Foundation – that gather and undertake research on best practice and share findings with the sector.

Rook says it is important that the programme takes into account differences in local services and pressures.

“It is always a good idea to implement best practice and guidance from those who have delivered it with success. However, it is just as important that a real local understanding is obtained and considered as each area has its own individual challenges,” he says.

“Every children’s service is being pushed to breaking point, whether it’s through increased needs or austerity cuts. To really deliver successful strategies, the What Works Centre’s approach must consider early intervention and support across all areas.

“This will enable a long-term sustainable service, rather than just concentrating on tackling the end result for a short-term fix,” he adds.

O’Sullivan welcomes the centre. “If you can find the right way of capturing best practice and sharing it, it has got to be a good thing. It’s not really clear how it will work in practice yet, but we support the intention.”

Another newly announced initiative is the expansion of fast-track social work training. More than £100m will be invested to expand the programmes Frontline and Step Up to Social Work.

Bridget Robb, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, says the shift in emphasis from locally driven social work courses to national programmes could undermine existing degree-level training.

“This approach is not only splitting the profession, as it is contrary to the professional commitment and proven best practice of a generic education for new entrants, but is promoting one model of working with children,” she says.

“At a time of great organisational change, this does not prepare people for long-term careers in the profession. It is also undermining the viability of university-based social work education with an impact on jobs and student options.”


Review of local safeguarding systems raises concerns

The review of the role played by local safeguarding children boards (LSCB) will look at how well the 146 scrutiny bodies are holding local child protection agencies to account.

Although the review is expected to be completed by March, ministers have said discussions will be wide-ranging, with all options for the future examined.

David N Jones, chair of the Association of Independent LSCB Chairs, says a key issue for the review is how the different agencies – police, health, education and social care – co-operate over safeguarding.  

“Most areas have strong working practices, but as senior management positions reduce we need to ask where do we best pitch co-operation,” he says.

“We don’t have national procedures [for how LSCBs work] and I believe there is some strong arguments for having a national framework that defines relationships between different people.”

Another issue that needs addressing, according to Jones, is how good boards are at identifying and tackling failures in local child protection practice.

Independent LSCB chair Jane Held says boards’ effectiveness at this has been hindered by having too many functions. She cites boards’ role as leading local safeguarding training as an example of the “clutter” that should be eradicated.

“I still believe LSCBs are necessary and know how to pull partners together at a local level with inter-agency responsibility,” she says.

“We are not there to do policy or deliver services, but to say how are you making a difference to childrens’ lives and how well are you doing it?”

Held adds that boards should be primarily focused on “assuring” the child protection safeguarding system.

“I believe government is receptive to this thinking,” she says. “It knows joint inspections are not going to do that – it’s too big and not locally focused.”

For this reason, Held is confident LSCBs will be retained.

A key function of boards is to commission and oversee serious case reviews (SCR), which the government is also planning to review.

It specifically wants to see whether delivering SCRs centrally could speed up the process of investigating a safeguarding failing and make them more comprehensive.

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions about what ‘centrally’ means,” warns Jones. “It stretches credibility that the DfE will set up an SCR unit. Maybe there will be more central scrutiny or they could outsource reviews to another organisation.

“I’m sceptical a national system of SCRs would speed things up.”

Held also fears more central control in reviews will turn them from a “learning process into a potential blame exercise”.


Councils under the spotlight

Councils judged “inadequate” and type of government intervention

• Birmingham – children’s commissioner appointed March 2014
• Doncaster – children’s services trust started October 2014
• Norfolk – children’s commissioner appointed December 2015
• Sandwell – children’s commissioner