On 16 July 2013 the Le Grand report into the future governance and structure of children's services in Doncaster was published. The report recommends the creation of a new, independent trust to deliver children's services.
Doncaster Children's Services needs stability and consistency to allow it to improve. It has struggled to resolve a number of fundamental cultural problems in recent years, leading to a vicious cycle of recruitment and retention difficulties. We at SOLACE are sceptical that a complex, uncertain and time-consuming organisational restructure would be helpful at this time. The Department for Education and Ofsted need to give any model the time and space to achieve sustainable improvement.
As management attention is focussed on the creation of a new trust, there is a risk that the ball is dropped on safeguarding. The creation of a new governance model may well prove a distraction at the expense of a core focus on frontline services and the day to day experience of children and their families.
We recognise the desire of the government to implement some independent oversight of children's services in Doncaster. However, the proposed solution substantially weakens the ability of local politicians and senior managers to hold the service to account. Central government intervention does not have a strong record of success. For improvement to be sustainable local leaders must be front and centre.
The issues highlighted by the report point to a wider problem in the regulation of children's services. Doncaster Children's Services has had at least six external inspections and reports in eight years. Continually re-assessing any authority is not improvement support. Repeated interventions serve only to damage local accountability, destabilise improvement plans and undermine the very progress it intends to galvanise.
Mark Rogers is chief executive of Solihull metripolitan borough council and lead on children's services at SOLACE
Content on this page is provided by SOLACE, partner on the Local Leadership hub
