Children's minister Margaret Hodge

Children’s minister Margaret Hodge has confirmed that there would be more flexibility around the role of director of children’s services and an extension to the deadline of introducing the posts and creating children's trusts.

Hodge announced that the government had made concessions on the role of children’s services director after listening to concerns in the sector.

“There is more flexibility about how services are arranged around the post and what level local authorities decide to put the post at,” she said.

Although the government still expected local authorities to have a children’s trust and a children’s services director, Hodge said that they would now have more time to be established as the deadline had been extended from 2006 to 2008.

Speaking later exclusively to Community Care, Hodge confirmed that the deadline for the creation of the children’s director posts would also be extended from 2006 to 2008.

She said the added flexibility around the posts also covered who should fill it, explaining that the post-holders could come from services outside education and social services, such as health or youth justice.

Hodge said part of the £20 million change programme fund announced today would be spent specifically on developing leadership skills to help those filling these new director posts.

According to the Children Bill, the same individual can be appointed as director of children’s services in more than one geographical area providing local agencies agree.

The minister hinted that the government’s plans for the shape of children’s trusts had also become more flexible. Professionals had raised concerns that they would be required to move all their staff into a trust, but she said this would not be the case.

“Trusts are about joint commissioning and pooling budgets,” she added.

Hodge outlined that one source of funding for the new measures could come from “reconfiguring” services for 13-19 year olds by making sure that each young person had a lead professional assigned to them.

The government would issue a report following the spending review on how much they could spend. “Money matters, but it is as such about changing the way people work and opening up the way people share information across professional boundaries”.

Hodge concluded that the new duty the bill placed on all agencies to safeguard children would include children in Young Offender Institutions.