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Whether the Children Bill represents the most significant change to children’s services for 30 years will depend on how it is implemented.

Although substantial changes lie ahead, critics who have been predicting the demise of children’s social services appear to have spoken too soon. Rather than dismantling the Children Act 1989, the bill builds on and develops it.

Structural change is inevitable, though the extent is less certain. The debate around the green paper proposals has encouraged greater recognition locally and nationally of what children’s social services are about. It has also highlighted the enormous risks wholesale disruption could bring.


However, there are equivalent risks attached to the ADSS’ reactions to the bill. If the ADSS’ responses to the proposed legislation are in any way “protectionist” or defensive of professional territory, more rigid prescription is likely to return and the organisation’s capacity to play a lead role will diminish.

More flexibility introduced

On the main aspects of the bill, it legislates for the new structures as the green paper anticipated. But it offers far more flexibility than the fixed and prescribed model which, it is understood, was overwhelmingly rejected in the consultation. There are essentially two aspects to the new flexibility: time and function.

'Next Steps', published alongside the bill, advises that there is an “expectation” most authorities will have a director of children’s services by 2006, and all of them by 2008. This is more leeway than expected, and may reflect the risks posed to government by rigid prescription. More time may allow for the best models to prove themselves. We cannot argue with the sense of that. Nor can we ignore the ability of government to bring forward the timetable if we are seen to be interpreting this as grounds for not changing.

There is more ambiguity in the description of the function of the director of children’s services. The bill says the director will assume responsibility for the functions relating to children currently conferred on the director of social services – in other words, the fixed model many critics objected to.

Yet Next Steps allows for local determination around organisational structures, delegation and line management responsibilities.There is reference to the possibility of the role encompassing adult social services alongside other responsibilities and even to the potential, at least initially, for the local authority’s chief executive to be the designated director.

These developments imply that the director could take on a strategic lead for children’s services which would not necessarily require existing social care structures to be dismantled. This is paralleled by the refining of the children’s trust model, which now appears to resemble more closely the partnership commissioning model developed in 'Serving Children Well', line managed within the local authority but formally engaging external agencies.

So there appears more room for local manoeuvre than had been expected and that has to be a positive. The challenge now has to be how we can use that flexibility to develop effective local solutions, but which also answer government’s unequivocal demands for clear lines of accountability for children’s services.

Throughout Lord Laming’s inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié, the ADSS supported calls for area child protection committees (ACPCs) to be given more teeth to enforce better child protection practice and co-operation. The government’s response – replacing ACPCs with local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) – should be welcomed.

But we need to guard against assumptions that this is a simple rebadging exercise. The bill gives more statutory authority to LSCBs than their predecessors enjoyed, but some professionals are disappointed that the bill has not gone further.

Few surprises

There are few surprises in the proposals for integrated inspection through what will be joint area reviews with schools watchdog Ofsted holding overall responsibility at least on an organisational level. The devil will be in the detail which is why the ADSS’s engagement with the inter-departmental working party charged with the development of an integrated framework will be so critical.

There have been mixed reports of pilot integrated inspections. Put crudely, how will Ofsted give a steer when it is apparent that services for children in need appear to be failing in an area where there is strong mainstream education performance?

Sensitivities about information-sharing and its challenges remain at a premium. There is a public and political perception that professionals use legislative barriers as a convenient cover for failing to communicate effectively with each other.

That view has probably been reinforced by the Bichard inquiry. It is clear from the wording of the bill and some of the attached briefings that the government is encountering the same regulatory impediments which affect professionals’ day-to-day practice.

That it has taken longer than expected even to agree on the unique identifying number for each child is one simple measure of the difficulties. Local experience suggests that aiming for a minimum dataset which records only basic information for sharing (if necessary without consent) is the right approach. The bill will establish a regulatory framework – how that framework is built will be the test.

We expect that the positive work taking place within authorities, especially identification, referral and tracking trailblazers, will provide the substance of the regulation throughout hard-fought practical experience and innovation.

Youth justice

The Local Government Association and the ADSS, through the Youth Crime Group, offered a robust response to 'Youth Justice – The Next Steps' when it was published as a companion to the green paper. That included a challenge about why young offenders were being treated separately in this process. It is gratifying that the key themes of that response are almost exactly reflected in this Next Steps so, for example, courts will continue to be required to have regard to the welfare of the child when sentencing.

We have to be realistic in acknowledging that youth justice services and the Youth Justice Board remain outside the new children, young people and families directorate and retain a narrow remit for the prevention of youth offending.

Limits of children's commissioner

Much of the media reaction to the publication of the bill focused on disquiet in some quarters that the proposals for the establishment of a children’s commissioner for England do not go far enough. This particularly applies to the commissioner not having a role in the investigation of individual cases. It remains to be seen where this debate will lead and whether indeed the post’s limitations inhibit its effectiveness.

On another level this concern seems almost churlish. Repeatedly, the case has been made for a statutory role independent of the main services and answerable to parliament to speak on behalf of children. Its introduction should be welcomed. The debate about its scope and remit will properly continue through the progress of the bill and perhaps beyond. It is, however, a positive, if overdue, step.

The bill represents significant change, but it also reflects some determined and informed argument on behalf of the ADSS and partners to ensure that what may follow will improve outcomes for children.

Penny Thompson and John Coughlan are co-chairs, ADSS children and families committee