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When it comes to children's services, there is a sense that the government, despite its best efforts, has not quite succeeded in co-ordinating the initiatives that are pouring out from the centre, writes Janet Snell.

The Department of Health, the Home Office, the children and young people's unit (CYPU), the family policy unit and the Treasury are all beavering away, but whether the result will be a "joined-up" agenda remains to be seen.

The CYPU is about to produce its strategy for children and young people by the end of the year, while work on the children's national service framework is well under way and due early next year. Young people's minister John Denham has just announced six "trailblazing" authorities that are to try out a new tracking system for at-risk children. At the same time, the government is to pilot new children's trusts, bringing together social services, education and elements of health.

Meanwhile, Lord Laming is still working on what is meant to be a landmark report, pointing the way forward for children's services following the Victoria Climbie Inquiry.

The Climbie case has prompted calls for the government to strip councils of their responsibility for child protection and instead set up a national agency to take on the role.

Not surprisingly, this idea has met with almost universal opposition from those working in social services children and families teams, and the latest salvo in the battle of words comes in a new report from an alliance of local government and health managers.

'Serving Children Well - A New Vision for Children's Services' is a joint discussion document from the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Social Services and the NHS Confederation. It sets out the case against major structural change and for a local solution building on existing local partnerships.

The report is now out for consultation and it is hoped will form the basis of a set of firm proposals for the future of children's services in time for the national social services conference in Cardiff in October.

The paper points out that there has been substantial investment in universal services for children along with large sums of cash diverted to children who are vulnerable because of ill-health or emotional or environmental deprivation. But because of the way performance indicators from different government departments can skew investment, this leaves substantial numbers of children between these two groups vulnerable because of other reasons, yet with no targeted services.

The report highlights other gaps in services and proposes revised children's strategic partnership boards reporting to local strategic partnerships (LSPs), as well as the creation of children's champions to promote the interests of children and scrutinise available services.

For Jane Held, co-chairperson of the ADSS children and families committee and director of Camden social services in London, the model proposed is both child-centred and logical. She says: "A national debate has been needed for some time on this. If you talk to practitioners the best way to protect kids is to invest in universal and targeted services.

"But it is crucial to remember that child protection is at the centre of working with kids. It is also everybody's responsibility. If you separate it out and give it to a new agency, it becomes somebody else's responsibility and that magnifies rather than reduces risk."

Jo Williams, director of social services for Cheshire and a member of the Department of Health's children's task force, agrees: "I'm not against new ways of working or people experimenting, but to suggest a new national agency is going to be some sort of panacea is quite wrong.

"We know from experience it ends up costing more money, it displaces people, relationships break down, and there's another 'x' number of children who miss out on a service while we try to sort things out. That really isn't good enough. Those children need us, and they need us now."


The report warns against "an obsession with service performance and inputs" and urges instead that people focus on service outcomes, citizens and communities.

Liz Kendall, associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, says there is a strong case for keeping services under the accountability of local government and points to new ways of working, such as in Hertfordshire, where children and family services are combined with education.

She says: "We need to focus less on what's going to happen to social services departments and more on asking what do we want to achieve for children and what structures will best support that.

"Where structures do change, you still want to retain a strong framework of democratic local accountability. But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that structural change in itself will not solve the problem. It may seem a neat solution, but it's not going to prevent another case like Victoria Climbi'."

Kendall rejects suggestions that the frenzy of activity around children's initiatives means the government has rejected the Climbi' Inquiry findings before Lord Laming has even finished writing them.

"I think the government will listen to Laming," she says. "If they decide they don't support what he is going to suggest, that will be a big surprise. I believe what's happened is that government departments have had to come up with new ideas because the spending review was due and that is when crucial decisions are made. It's just not possible to say we must wait until Laming comes out."

Kendall believes the idea of separating out child protection into a new national body is losing ground among those at the top, and adds that there is merit in the argument that the future lies, as A New 'Vision for Children's Services' suggests, within the LSP framework.

"I think it's something the government will look at," she says. "But first they need to formulate a coherent idea of what they are trying to achieve with children's policy. It's all very well for government to call for more co-ordination locally, but it has to be said there seems little evidence of that at a national level."

'Serving Children Well - A New Vision for Children's Services' from www.lga.gov.uk

Key proposals:

An outcomes-based approach moving away from bureaucratic rules

A unified performance management system

A universal child indicator enabling agencies to identify children by a shared set of priorities

A single assessment system with a shared approach to assessing and recording need, and a shared multi-agency in-basket

Involvement of children, for example a children's parliament

A co-ordinated workforce plan to prevent staff leaving core services to move on to new initiatives