Following an Ofsted inspection in July 2010, Birmingham's safeguarding children's services was judged inadequate and the Government imposed an improvement notice on the city council.
This wasn't the first such notice – a very similar improvement notice had been put in place only a couple of years previously. Talk to anyone involved in children's services in Birmingham and they'll tell you that the quality of the services has been variable for years.
So what will be different this time? In an authority as complex and diverse as Birmingham, sustainable improvement will inevitably take time. Previously there were attempts at quick fixes. For example there was investment in development programmes for social workers, but a failure to pay attention to the importance of staff retention, resulted in too many of the most experienced social workers leaving the authority.
This year the city council has recognised that only radical change to the way in which children's services are organised will deliver the high level of improvement that we all want to see and in March the cabinet gave its full backing to the implementation of a new model of service.
We know that structural change in itself will not create a well functioning and high performing children's service, but improvements based on the right reasoning and addressing the main flaws in the current structures, are an essential first step forward.
The importance of getting it right this time cannot be over stated. Research and experience tells us that delivering sustainable improvement requires action to address both strategic and operational issues. Safeguarding children's services is a multi-agency business and if standards are to be improved, then our partnerships have to be effective.
A well-functioning children's system relies on dynamic leaders who know and understand what is happening at the frontline and who are effective at creating strategic drive across the children's service's partnership of statutory and voluntary organisations.
This sits alongside high quality social work practice with support for front-line staff through regular and competent supervision, good IT systems, appropriate caseloads, clear standards and effective recruitment and retention initiatives.
Our new structure has put in place processes and practices which identify children who need early support and to enable the right response to be put in place at the right time – our aim is to ensure we have the right child in the right part of the system receiving the right services. Finally we need to ensure there is the frontline staff and management capacity to deal with different levels of service demand. Not something that is always easy to achieve at a time of significant budget reductions.
Our service changes are designed to ensure that we pay attention to getting all of this right. Most important though, is culture change, balancing the need to value our staff against the importance of not tolerating poor performance.
It has been a rapid and challenging journey, from early consultation in January to seeing our new teams being operational this September. Together with our lead member for children's services, I staged a series of roadshows for hundreds of our staff and partners.
Workshops were held to make sure that staff contributed to the service developments and more than a hundred staff took up the opportunity of a ‘weekly drop in' to come along and meet with me to raise both concerns and make positive suggestions for improvement.
Electronic weekly briefings providing regular updates on the re-modelling are read by staff across the directorate - as I know from the positive comments I receive when I visit teams.
Senior managers ensure they spend time with front line staff, as does our executive member for children's social care. We know just how important visible leadership is at times of major change. All our posts have been reviewed, and all managers have had to apply for, be assessed and interviewed for their roles in the new structure.
We have some excellent staff and excellent services alongside those that we know need to improve and we have built on what works. This has led to the establishment of our new Integrated Family Support teams (IFSTs).
Over 500 staff from across the directorate, from the youth service, connexions, family support and early years, have been interviewed to take 350 places in teams that will provide a co-ordinated response to children and families who need additional support but who don't meet the conventional thresholds for social care intervention.
Our schools are supporting this initiative, funding 50% of the cost this year and recognising that the teams will fill a real gap in provision. Every school in the city will have a link person in their local IFST to ensure that needs are addressed speedily and effectively. Head teachers know that supporting our more vulnerable children in this way will also contribute to school improvement.
We have re-modelled our social work teams to improve our practice with children subject to child protection plans and in our care. Developing multi –agency working is progressing. Next month sees the start of the first pilot in the south of the city with police and health staff working alongside our social workers to respond to referrals.
In January we will review the difference we are making to outcomes for children and their families. We believe that the structural changes, combined with paying attention to systems, processes, staff development, performance management, working better with our partners - and most importantly strong leadership - will create the step change in services that our children deserve.
Eleanor Brazil is interim strategic director children, young people and families at Birmingham City Council
