‘Directors should lose jobs over poor services’

Directors of children’s services need to be held to account more over services for disabled children and lose their jobs if care does not improve, delegates heard.

Steve Broach, campaign manager for the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign, said that the inspection regime for services for disabled children needed to be tightened in order to drive up standards.

“We need directors of children’s services to know that if they don’t improve services for disabled children they will lose their jobs,” he said.

Broach added that there were currently no performance indicators for disabled children’s services and that this needed to be addressed.

Helen Smith, head of service, child and family care, at Cumbria Council, agreed, saying services for disabled children had not been scrutinised as closely as those for looked after children and child protection in a recent joint area review she had been through.

Every Disabled Child Matters was launched by a coalition of charities last year to improve services for the group.