Key children’s services challenges to shape next ADCS presidency

Andy Smith steps into the role of president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) during an election year in which the state of public services – including those for disadvantaged children and families – are tipped to be high on the agenda.

Smith, Derby City Council’s director of children and adult services, credits his own experience growing up in care – he was adopted by his foster carers aged 11 – as inspiring him to become a social worker.

• Andy Smith: Childhood really does matter in the year ahead

Reflecting on three decades in frontline social care practice, where he specialised in child protection, and senior management, he says: “I can say from experience that we can’t underestimate the impact social workers have on the lives of those they work with. I like to think that I was always meant to be a social worker, you could say it was in my blood.”

‘Apprenticeship’ year

He describes his year as vice-president to Durham’s director of children’s services John Pearce as an “apprenticeship of sorts” in a year shaped by the publication of the government’s response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and its special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) improvement plan.

Smith insists his priorities during his presidency, supported by vice-president Rachael Wardell, director of children’s services at Surrey County Council, will further the work of his predecessor.

During his inaugural speech on 16 April, Smith set out the context under which he takes on the presidential role, highlighting that the number of children living in households below the poverty line has risen to 4.2 million, one in four older teenagers has a probable mental health condition, there was a £800mn children’s social care funding gap in 2022/23 and a projected £4bn local government funding gap over the next two years.

SEND reforms

“The government has set out big reform agendas across both children’s social care and SEND and AP,” Smith says in his speech. But adds: “I’m not as convinced that the vision and suite of reforms set out in the SEND and AP implementation strategy will deliver the step change that we need in the SEND system.”

In March last year, the government published its SEND and AP improvement plan laying out major plans for reform of services for children, including a focus on inclusion in mainstream education for children with SEND and the digitisation of education, health and care plans (EHCPs). Initial plans for SEND reform, detailed in a government green paper, were underpinned by the Schools White Paper which was scrapped by the Department for Education in December 2022. The ADCS has called for the white paper to be reinstated.

Smith backs calls for an inclusive mainstream education system but adds that “a narrowing curriculum, depleting resources, an inspection regime that doesn’t reward inclusivity and misplaced incentives means that some of our most vulnerable children are essentially excluded by the back door”.

He argues that while the government’s improvement plan clearly lays out key challenges within the SEND system, “the plan of action doesn’t address them head on”. The Schools White Paper, however, “offers a clear path which would help to pave the way for a more inclusive system”, he says.

Care Review progress

Smith further backs proposals taken forward by the government from its Stable Homes Built on Love policy paper.

“The principles set out in Stable Homes Built on Love are the right ones and we must guard against anything derailing the plan – continuity and pace is key,” he says, adding that the sector is “behind the reforms”.

Ministers have named the first seven local authorities to pilot the £45mn Families First For Children pathfinder which trials policies designed to keep families together including the creation of specialist child protection social worker posts and a greater focus on partnership working around safeguarding.

“We need to be mindful to not leave others behind – learning must be shared across the system so that everyone can benefit from the investment and transformation,” Smith explains.

He further highlights the need for ministers to commit to curbing profits made by large private children’s social care providers, backed by private equity firms.

“The Care Review proposed a ban on excessive profiteering and a windfall tax on the largest providers. This wouldn’t raise a huge sum, but it would send out a clear message that children, not profits, should be the priority here,” he says.

A new Market Interventions Advisory Group was announced earlier this month (April) led by former ADCS president Steve Crocker in a bid to examine plans to curb profiteering in children’s residential care and fostering.

Workforce sufficiency

“During my presidency, ADCS will continue to call for the government to develop a plan for childhood focused on improving children’s outcomes in a systematic way,” says Smith, explaining that “a sufficient workforce” is needed across the children and young people’s sector to deliver this.

A key barrier to building such a workforce lies, he says, in tackling profits made by social work agencies, particularly through those charging local authorities high fees for entire teams of social workers known as project or managed teams.

An investigation into the use of managed teams by CYP Now shows that 43% of local authorities commissioned a managed team between 2017 and 2022, amounting to a total cost of £41mn across all councils.

Stable Homes Built on Love takes steps to reduce the use of agencies by local authorities through measures including a ban on social workers signing up in their first two years of practice. However, it rowed back on plans to ban the use of managed teams despite sector support for the proposals during a consultation.

“The original proposal to restrict project teams from holding statutory case work should be revisited, it is in the best interests of children and families and the profession,” Smith says. “Let me be clear, there are no benefits of the project team model being deployed in statutory case-holding work other than the opportunities it provides for agencies to generate unacceptably high profits.”

He adds that to build a strong workforce to deliver crucial reforms, greater value must be placed on the profession and reflected in salaries, benefits and public perceptions of the role. He says: “Children’s services should be a career destination of choice, offering attractive opportunities and rewards as well as real career development pathways to retain the great people already in the system and attract new talent in their droves. I’m not necessarily advocating for a new Children’s Workforce Development Council [the leadership body scrapped by the coalition government], but we do need something to give us the focus we once had and fill the void that currently exists.”

Smith also advocates for creating more diversity in director of children’s services roles.

Placement sufficiency

Local Government Association research finds that one in five council leaders fear being forced to declare effective bankruptcy this year, with the majority citing children’s social care as an area causing the most pressure on budgets.

Earlier this year, Birmingham City Council made record cuts to its budget in a bid to balance the books, including cutting £100mn from children and family services.

The dire state of local authority funding is being exacerbated by a lack of affordable placement options for children in care, Smith says.

“The sector is in the midst of a placement sufficiency crisis – we don’t have enough placements, in the right locations, that meet the needs of children and young people today,” he explains. “We’ve been navigating this for years and the crisis continues to intensify despite the record amounts being spent by local authorities.”

Government support is needed, he adds, through “a clear and properly resourced plan with short, medium and long-term actions which must include focusing on recruiting more local authority foster carers and taking a more transformational approach to kinship care”.

Taking a swipe at ministers’ plans to create a new regional commissioning model for the placement of children, Smith adds: “Regional care co-operatives simply won’t cut it.”

‘Collective nerve’

Leading the children’s social care sector during such a pivotal year is no easy feat, but Smith remains positive, urging children’s services leaders to “keep our collective nerve and continue to be unapologetic in our determination to achieve positive change and really make childhood matter”.

Highlighting his passion for the role and reflecting on his own journey, he adds: “Who knows, today’s children in care could be tomorrow’s directors of children’s services.”

Boosting diversity in children's services leadership

Smith makes it clear that a key focus of his role as ADCS president will be to boost diversity in children’s services leadership and across the sector.

Latest ADCS figures show that on 31 March 2023, 81% of DCSs identified as white British; 5% as white Irish; 6% as “other” white; 1% as black African; 1% as black Caribbean; 2% as white and black Caribbean; and 2% as white and Asian.

“We need a diverse workforce if we are to understand and meet the needs of the communities we serve,” he says.

Vowing to make diversity within children’s services a key priority for the year, he argues this starts with improving diversity within the ADCS “and our membership”.

“We’ve created new roles in the last 12 months that draws the wider membership into the work of our board and of the policy committees,” he says. “The principles of diversity, equity and inclusion are fundamental to all areas of our work, and we are committed to highlighting, challenging and addressing issues of disproportionality, discrimination and systemic barriers that limit opportunity where they exist, and we won’t stop there.”