PAPER 12
EDUCATION
AND SKILLS AUTHORITY: DIRECTOR OF CHILDREN’S
SERVICES
Purpose
1. The purpose
of this paper is to consider the implications of the
Ministerial
announcement on 22 November 2005 that contained a
reference to
the appointment of a Director of Children’s Services within
the ESA.
Background
2. In November
2005 Angela Smith said she wanted to see “the
appointment
of a Director of Children’s Services to co-ordinate the
Education
Authority’s responsibilities for children.” Later in the same
statement the
Minister noted the “inter-dependence of public service
provision”, and that “the
appointment of a Director of Children’s
Services
is a clear recognition of this.” This suggests that the Director
of Children’s
Services should have a role in working with other
organisations
outside the ESA that deliver services to children.
3. The concept
of a Director of Children's Services comes from the GB
Children Act
2004 and it is a key part of the Every Child Matters
agenda . The
rationale for the introduction of the arrangements in GB
comes from the
shared policy agenda (Every Child Matters) to
maximise
opportunities and minimise risks for all children and young
people by
focusing services more effectively around their needs.
4. Before
considering how to give effect to the Ministerial commitment to
establish a
similar post in Northern Ireland, it may be useful to set out
some of the
key points of the GB legislation.
Position in
England
5. The basic
premise of the arrangements in GB is that services need to
be organised
around the child, young person and family rather than
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professional
disciplines. The Children Act 2004 establishes a duty on
local
authorities as the “children’s services authority”, to establish a
Local
Safeguarding Children Board for their area, and make
arrangements
to promote co-operation between agencies in order to
improve children’s
well-being, defined by reference to five outcomes
(see below).
The latter is designed to maximise opportunities for
children,
while the former is to address the issue of improving child
protection and
minimising risks to children. A duty is also placed on key
partners to
take part in those arrangements, and a new power to allow
pooling of
resources in support of these arrangements is established.
6. The five
outcomes that define children’s well being in this legislation
are:
· Physical and
mental health and emotional well-being;
· Protection
from harm and neglect;
· Education,
training and recreation;
· The
contribution made by them to society; and
· Social and
economic well-being.
7. These are
similar to the outcomes that have now been adopted by
Ministers in
the recently published Ten Year Strategy of children and
young people
in Northern Ireland.
8. Section 18
of the Children Act places a duty on each local authority (or
“children’s
services authority”) in England to appoint a Director of
Children’s
Services to be responsible for, as a minimum, education and
children’s
social services. This reflects the situation in England where
both education
and social services fall within the remit of the local
authority.
9. The
Director of Children's Services provides the professional focus for
children’s
services and has three key roles:
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· Professional
responsibility and accountability for the authority’s
children’s
services – i.e. the effectiveness, availability and value for
money of all
the authority’s children’s services;
· Leadership
to drive change – both within the authority to secure
and sustain
the necessary changes to culture and practice, and
beyond it so
that services improve outcomes for all and are
organised
around children and young people; and
· Building
effective partnerships - The Director of Children's
Services is
required to build and lead robust partnership
arrangements
to ensure public, private, voluntary and community
organisations
work together to improve outcomes for children and
young people
and align appropriate resources of all partner
agencies
against agreed priorities.
10. Schools
are seen as critical to ensuring every child has the opportunity
to fulfil
their potential. Raising standards and inclusion go hand in hand
and are key contributors
to improving children’s well being. Therefore
the Director
of Children's Services is required to play an active role in
facilitating
the engagement of schools with the wider children’s agenda.
11. High
quality childcare is equally important in ensuring that children can
fulfil their
potential and parents realise their aspirations, balancing work
and family
life. The Director of Children's Services therefore also has a
key role in
the strategic planning of sustainable childcare, and in coordinating
the work of
key partners.
12. In
discharging his/her role the Director of Children's Services is also
required to
listen to and involve children in determining their needs,
and champion
their interests both across functional boundaries within
the authority,
and across local partnerships, and each child services
authority is
required to publish a 3-year strategic Children and Young
People’s Plan
(CYPP).
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13. The
legislation also makes provision for the designation of one of the
Members of the
council as “lead member for children’s services”. In
the section
applying to Wales, while most provisions mirror the English
situation, in
addition to officer and member posts in the local authority
both the local
Health Boards and the NHS Trusts in Wales are also
required to
appoint lead officers/executive directors and lead Board
Members/
non-executive directors for children’s services. This should
provide a
network of key decision makers within the main partner
organisations
and ensure that children’s services are given equal
weight in each
of these organisations, thus facilitating the development
of strong
networks and partnerships.
NORTHERN
IRELAND CONTEXT
14. The policy
objective here, as in England and Wales, is to better coordinate
and integrate
the full range of children’s services. However,
as Education
and Social Services are (and will be) the responsibility of
two separate
organisations here we cannot simply replicate the
arrangements
in GB. We therefore need to examine other ways to
achieve a
similar outcome without losing the benefits of some of the
existing
arrangements in Northern Ireland that are working very
effectively.
15. The
Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
(DHSSPS) has
responsibility for social services to children, and takes
the lead on
child protection issues in Northern Ireland. The
effectiveness
of the services provided by the Health and Personal
Social
Services (HPSS) structures in Northern Ireland is viewed by GB
counterparts
as particularly effective due to the integration of health
and social
services, and the close working relationship between the
two sets of
professionals. The Secretary of State, in his statement in
March 2006,
acknowledged this important linkage and announced that
social services
would remain integrated with the health structures.
Therefore,
integrating children’s social services into the education
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structures is
not an option.
16. Child
protection is a core responsibility of the HPSS with very effective
arrangements
already in place. To further improve these arrangements
DHSSPS is
currently developing proposals for the establishment of a
Safeguarding
Board for Northern Ireland, similar to those established
by local
authorities in GB under the Children Act. A consultation paper
is due to
issue soon. ESA will have an important role to play as a key
member of this
Board, and it may be appropriate for the Director of
Children’s
Services within ESA to be the ESA representative on that
Board, and
ensure that ESA works with all its partners to meet all its
child
protection responsibilities.
17. Child
protection is everyone’s responsibility, although it is important
that there is
one organisation that is clearly seen to be in the lead.
However,
having a director within ESA nominated as responsible for
children’s
services, including child protection will help raise the profile
of child
protection within the organisation and send the message that it
is a matter
that is given a high priority within ESA.
Proposed Role
of ESA’s Director of Children’s Services
18. In
addition to child protection responsibilities what role will ESA’s
Director of
Children’s services have? Given that ESA’s remit is more
limited than a
local authority in GB – i.e. it has no responsibility for
children’s
social services – there remains the question of how the
appointment of
a Director of Children’s Services within ESA might
achieve
similar outcomes to the GB arrangements in terms of
improving the
integration of services to children across the board?
19. The
proposed approach is to look at how the integration of services
might be
achieved through partnership arrangements and consider
how best to
build on existing arrangements of co-operation to deliver
an even more
integrated approach to service delivery for children and
young people.
Both the ESA and the HSSA will appoint their own
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Directors of
Children's Services1, and the two would be required to
work closely
to develop arrangements for the integration of services to
children,
working with other partners such as the criminal justice
system,
probation service, PSNI, and local councils.
20. The risk,
however, is that this might be seen as just another
partnership in
a very crowded field. With the introduction of community
planning the
opportunity exists to rationalise the number of
partnerships
and we should seize this opportunity by linking this
partnership
arrangement into the community planning structures. It
would not be
necessary to wait until community planning structures
have been
fully developed by councils – this may take some time – but
the structures
put in place by the ESA and the HSSA should be
compatible
with community planning proposals. At present it is
proposed that
each council should have a community planning
partnership
populated by core partners (education being one) and
others. It is
further proposed that there should be thematic subpartnerships,
and that these
might be led by the relevant partner.
Councils could
be specifically required to have a thematic subpartnership
in each area
relating to services to children and young
people. That
sub-partnership should be chaired by either the Director
of Children's
Services of ESA or the HSSA or jointly by both. This
would allow
ESA to play a prominent role in community planning, and
allow councils
to engage positively with the education and youth sector
to ensure
better outcomes for children and young people in their area.
21. The
Director would therefore be responsible for:
· ensuring that
services provided by ESA are well co-ordinated and
there are no
internal conflicts between different divisions, or where
there are seek
a resolution that represents the best outcome for the
child;
1 It has been agreed that, given the current statutory
responsibilities set out in the Children (NI) Order
1995 that the holder of this post in the HSSA will discharge the
responsibilities of the Executive
Director of Social Work.
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· ensuring that
ESA works with key partners to maximise opportunities
for children
and young people (through participation in the community
planning
process) and minimise risks (through membership of the
Safeguarding
Board as well as raising the profile of child protection
within ESA and
with school and youth organisations); and
· actively
engaging children and young people, their parents, carers and
teachers in
the debate about how services to meet their needs are
developed and
delivered.
This
arrangement would be wholly compatible with the Children’s
strategy which
proposes the development of the Northern Ireland
Network for
Youth and the district Youth Network. These could be
useful
mechanisms through which to engage children and young
people in this
whole process.
22. Going down
this route, however, will require a considerable amount of
work to define
the services covered, the roles of individuals and
organisations,
clarify lines of accountability, and consider other issues
such as
pooling resources, developing common databases etc in line
with arrangements
in GB.
Proposed
Legislation
23. In terms
of implementing this, ESA and HSSA could be
required by
their respective parent departments, through management
agreements, to
appoint Directors of Children's Services, and for these
appointees to
work together through the community planning structures
to integrate
services to children. In this way the roles could evolve and
issues/problems
be addressed in the same timeframe as the wider
community
planning structures and processes are being developed.
DOE may wish
to consider placing a requirement on councils, through
statutory
regulations/guidelines on community planning, to have a subpartnership
focussing on
children and young people in each area.
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RPA
Division
28th November 2006