Identifying the tenets of successful leadership in children's services is a challenge because, judging by Ofsted ratings, only a handful of councils are delivering on this crucial area. Yet this is what Ofsted has attempted to do with its recent commentary on children's services leadership.
Last Friday, the Reading Post published a story about how children's services in the town received only one application for each of the three senior social worker jobs it advertised. On the same day, the Coventry Telegraph reported that 30 demonstrators had gathered outside the city's town hall calling for more action to be taken against the agencies involved in the Daniel Pelka case.
Like a piercing, bitter English winter, Chancellor George Osbourne's "autumn statement" was eye-wateringly harsh. It is, without doubt, children and young people growing up in the most deprived households who are being asked to bear the brunt.