DfE seeking ‘more cost-effective’ alternative to children’s trusts for struggling services

The government is working on a project to develop a “more cost-effective” alternative to children’s trusts for struggling services.

The Department for Education (DfE) project is also looking to develop a response plan for the possibility of any existing children’s trust failing financially.

The work was revealed in the DfE’s annual report for 2023-24 and, while started under the Conservative government, is continuing under the Labour administration.

It is being carried out by the DfE’s regions group, which supports improvement across children’s social care and education.

A proposed solution to ‘failing’ services

The children’s trust model was strongly advocated by David Cameron’s Conservative government as a solution for turning around ‘failing’ services, as well as a way of using structural innovation to raise social care performance generally.

In a 2016 paper, the then government set a target of having a third of councils having, or being on course to having, their children’s services run by a trust or another alternative delivery model (ADM) by 2020.

The most prominent alternative ADM is one council taking responsibility for another’s services, as Hampshire did in relation to the Isle of Wight from 2013-24, during which time the island’s services improved from ‘inadequate’ to ‘good’.

From 2014-20, trusts or companies took responsibility for 11 councils’ children’s services, about 7% of the total.

All but one of these subsequently improved, in terms of their Ofsted rating, the exception being the already good-rated Richmond. The biggest success story was Sunderland, whose rating improved from inadequate in 2018 to outstanding in 2021 under the stewardship of the Together for Children trust.

Concerns over costs

However, since 2020, just one trust has been created, in Bradford, while Doncaster took its services back in-house in 2022. This followed a decline in performance which saw its rating fall from good to requires improvement, partially reversing the progress made from the trust’s ‘inadequate’ starting point, in 2014.

The south Yorkshire authority also said the trust’s services were a “significant budgetary pressure” and that bringing services back in-house would save money through reducing overheads.

In relation to Worcestershire, where children’s services are rated good, the council also cited financial reasons in its decision to bring provision back in-house.

Meanwhile, Bradford Children and Families Trust (BCFT) overspent its budget by £42.3m in its first year, 2023-24, driven chiefly by the widespread issues of placements costs for children in care and high agency staff costs.

In a statement last month, BCFT’s chief executive, Charlotte Ramsden, said it was investing in early help and kinship care to reduce demand for residential placements, was making “good progress” in safely reducing agency staff use and was on target to meet savings commitments in 2024-25.

A turning away from the trust model

Since 2020, trusts and ADMs have been considered in other areas subject to statutory directions, but eventually rejected on the advice of DfE-appointed commissioners.

In two of these areas – Medway and West Sussex – the authority made significant improvements, with the former earning a good rating and the latter a requires improvement grade, with good features, from Ofsted last year.

In other cases, such as Herefordshire, North East Lincolnshire, Solihull and Sefton, commissioners rejected a trust on the grounds of the potential disruption to improvement of transferring services to a new body, and the delay to progress that would result from creating such an organisation.

Instead, they have tended to recommend that the authority be supported to improve by a high-performing council, such as those listed as sector-led improvement partners by the DfE.

Commissioner critical of council but does not recommend trust

The same was true of a highly critical report on Tameside council by its commissioner, Andy Couldrick, published last week.

Couldrick was chief executive of Birmingham Children’s Trust from its inception in 2018 until last year, when he became its chair, during which time it has improved the city’s Ofsted rating from inadequate to good.

He found that Tameside, rated inadequate by Ofsted at the start of this year, had “most of the characteristics of failing services that have moved into children’s trusts”, including “a weak corporate and cultural context; unstable and inconsistent leadership over a protracted period; high churn in the workforce, linked to the leadership inconsistency; a weak partnership system”.

While noting the authority had made progress, he concluded that it could not improve on its own steam. However, he did not recommend that its services be turned over to a trust, saying that the authority, which he found had a tendency to blame others for its problems, needed to take responsibility for its own improvement.

Trusts ‘can be costly to implement and take time to establish’

Couldrick added: “In addition, children’s trusts can be costly to implement and take time to establish. Tameside’s most vulnerable children do not have this time.”

Instead, he recommended that the authority retain a commissioner and should be supported by a high-performing council, which the DfE has accepted through a revised direction.

The council is currently recruiting a new director of children’s services to replace Allison Parkinson, who held the role on an interim basis from summer 2023 to August 2024 and whose work was praised by Couldrick.

In response to his report, the council’s chief executive, Sandra Stewart, said: “We acknowledge and support the recommendations made by the Commissioner to help us achieve the substantial and sustainable improvements we are striving for.

“We have already started to put in place the key building blocks needed to deliver an improved and stronger children’s service that will support better outcomes for families in Tameside. We are committed – as a whole organisation and with our partners – to taking swift and positive action to build on these foundations and creating the stability needed in our workforce to progress.”