A journey to a journey – transformation of Home to School Travel
A journey to a journey – transformation of Home to School
Widening the lens through which our clients begin to tackle the challenge.
In December 2014 Children’s minister Edward Timpson unveiled a plan to tackle poor standards across “failing” children’s services departments. Within this was a key role for ‘Achieving for Children’ – a social enterprise company created by Kingston and Richmond authorities to deliver their children’s services, and described in its 2014 National Children and Adults Services Conference billing as the ‘future model for children’s services’.
Last week we heard that this company – given an oversight role by government in the creation of a children’s trust in Sunderland – is heading for a £8.2m deficit by the end of 2018-19. This news come fresh from research suggesting sparse evidence that the adoption of independent trust models improves the outcomes they deliver to children.
While a reality check for those espousing new delivery models with greater autonomy from local authorities as a ‘panacea’ for the challenges faced by children’s services, these developments should come as no great surprise. My colleague’s recent Fit for Purpose report excellently challenges the notion of new delivery models as a ‘quick fix’.
IMPOWER’s work with children’s service departments nationwide has shown the following to be true…
There’s a natural interest and enthusiasm among many for large scale and ‘sexy’ structural changes – and a hope that these can improve outcomes and reduce costs. However, our work in this area suggests this cannot be a substitute for a focus on understanding and responding to the root causes of the challenges faced by departments, children and families.