ADCS chief urges government for trust

Directors of children’s services should be afforded the same professional freedoms as head teachers and social workers, the incoming president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has claimed.

Speaking at an event to mark his inauguration, Matt Dunkley called on ministers to trust children’s services leaders.

“We’d like you to trust us like you trust your head teachers,” he said. “I strongly believe that directors of children’s services should be offered the same freedoms, the same professional discretion and the respect that central government has conceded to offer other professionals on the frontline of children’s social care and in schools.”

Dunkley urged government to believe in councils’ capacity to adapt and deliver services in new ways, but said their role should not be taken for granted.

“We have already delivered, as local government always does, a budget that balances after the most challenging settlement in living memory and for children’s services, the most frontloaded cuts in the public sector this financial year,” he said.

On the government’s health and education reforms, Dunkley warned that local authorities would have to work hard to make sure that children and young people are not forgotten.

In terms of the special educational needs (SEN) green paper, Dunkley said ADCS is keen to work with government to make its proposals more radical.

“More providers means more diversity, but also the possible creation of more gaps for the vulnerable to fall through,” he said. “It is our responsibility not to let that happen. Articulating that role in respect of school provision and school improvement; changes to the health service; of SEN services and in respect of child protection will be the focus of my presidential year. 

“In the face of a rapidly changing landscape it is our responsibility to make sure the needs of all children and young people are understood and met, and their voice is heard in these changes.”

Children’s minister Sarah Teather pledged to work with ADCS to redefine the relationship between central and local government.

“Ministers are quite clear that we want a new relationship where local government has more freedom and more power to get on and serve,” she said. “But not all that has yet been defined. It is by working together over the next year, two years, three years that we will begin to define that relationship and shape that role.”