Making the right choice for the next generation

In his latest article, Emmet Regan looks at the factors to consider when choosing the best model for the delivery of children’s services during local government reorganisation. He argues that the right model should be driven by local need, continuity, improvement and accountability.

Local government reorganisation (LGR) creates a once in a lifetime opportunity to rethink

how services can be governed, led and delivered to improve outcomes and focus on prevention.

As councils and council services are aggregated and disaggregated, leaders must decide what is the best model for the delivery of those services. The most pressing of these will be children's services, particularly children's social care and special educational needs and disabilities. Given the financial and regulatory pressures, these decisions will have large-scale impact on new unitary councils and therefore careful thought must be taken now to ensure the right choice is made.

We must learn the lessons of previous reforms in children's services, but we should not be bound by them. We cannot be dogmatic to a particular model or legal form such as a children's trust, nor can we be slavish to an approach that may have worked in a particular geographic area but can be very contextually specific.

If a new delivery model becomes too detached from the council, families may experience more handoffs, less focus on prevention and less coherent place-based support. LGR should be about integration around communities; a poorly designed new model of delivery could pull in the opposite direction.

Each individual authorities' starting position and context will be paramount to the optimum delivery model for that area. One size, by definition, cannot fit all. We know that children's trusts have been used to drive improvement during LGR in places like Northamptonshire, but we also know that other models such as informal partnerships or more formal models such as Achieving for Children in south west London have provided answers to working across local authority boundaries.

Leaders will have to make decisions as to how best to configure their services to ensure improved outcomes for children and families.

The strongest argument for creating a new delivery model during LGR is a singular focus as reorganisation is inevitably disruptive. Children's social care is too high-risk to become one priority among many. A new delivery model can give the service a singular focus with a single leadership team and a clear improvement mandate. Where councils are aggregating children's services with different practice models or inspection histories, a new delivery model can also provide a neutral platform for building a new operating platform rather than simply bringing services together.

A key lesson on creating any new model of delivery is that it will likely require significant upfront support. Legal work, due diligence, staff transfer arrangements, financial modelling, information governance, commissioning agreements and relationship-building with regulators and partners are required activity. These are not trivial tasks and not without associated costs.

However, creating a new model of delivery is not a panacea for national and local challenges. Children's social care depends on the interplay of housing, education, early help, public health, community safety and adult services. If a new delivery model becomes too detached from the council, families may experience more handoffs, less focus on prevention and less coherent place-based support. LGR should be about integration around communities; a poorly designed new model of delivery could pull in the opposite direction.

The right test is therefore not a choice of ‘trust or council?' Rather it is ‘what arrangement best protects continuity while enabling improvement?' A new model of delivery may be right where there is a compelling improvement case, a need to operate across several new authorities, a fragile workforce or a clear opportunity to create specialist capability that the council cannot easily sustain.

Keeping services in-house may be right where performance is stable, partnerships are strong and the main risk is dislocation from the wider council system.

For areas going through LGR, the best approach is to take the time to think seriously. Leaders should design structure around need, not the other way around.

Alternate delivery models can be powerful vehicles for focus and improvement, but only when they are embedded in strong local partnerships and subject to clear democratic accountability. Councils can equally be the right home for children's services, but only if the new authority gives the service sufficient leadership focus, investment and operational grip. Structure matters, but it is not the determinant of success.

Read our report: Children’s Services and Local Government Reorganisation (LGR): Key Considerations

Please contact Emmet.Regan@mutualventures.co.uk if you'd like to discuss LGR and Children's Services.

This article was originally published in www.themj.co.uk