DCS leadership: time to get resourceful

Big changes in the organisation and delivery of children’s services is prompting leaders to adopt a much more resourceful approach, writes Andrew Coleman.

Change affects all leaders and it is a fundamental element of leadership itself, but few posts are wrestling with changes as challenging or significant as those currently being faced by England’s directors of children’s services.

Indeed recent research into the changing shape of children’s services completed by the National College and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) found that 91 per cent of authorities were planning to change or review the way in which they delivered children’s services in their area. Moreover the nature and scale of these changes is such that they have potentially profound implications for the DCS role itself.

Leading in such a climate demands a particular set of characteristics, and these formed the focus for a major study, commissioned by the National College in partnership with C4EO, into how leaders of children’s services improve outcomes for children. This research, carried out by a partnership involving Deloitte, Oxford University and Navigate, identified eight behaviours which were consistently displayed by leaders in a sample of high-performing local authorities. Collectively these behaviours are underpinned by a range of knowledge, skills and attributes, are best described as resourcefulness.

Concerned with maximising and effectively utilising the resources available to achieve the best outcomes for children, the notion of resourcefulness was originally developed by Professor Anne Edwards from Oxford University, and focuses on how leaders draw in potential expertise, capital and influence to achieve the best possible outcomes for their organisation. While all leaders need to demonstrate resourcefulness regardless of their context, Anne believes the DCS role places a particular premium on this ability, as it attempts to draw together a range of parties to promote the interests of children.

“Resourceful leadership is important for DCSs who are creating and leading systems that contain a vast range of expertise because it is about recognising and working with the resources that are available,” she writes. “It involves having long-term goals based on outcomes, reading the landscape, recognising the knowledge and skills that are available, mobilising them, making them and their purposes visible, aligning the purposes to the long-term goals and enabling people to work on and change the landscape.”

“Resourceful leadership is about recognising and working with the resources that are available.”

Resourcefulness therefore helps leaders of children’s services to address the particularly complex challenges they currently face, while at the same time retaining a clear focus on outcomes for children.

“At the moment when many are preoccupied with a range of big challenges – a tough financial climate, expectations from the public and government to deliver services for less, demographic changes, complex and shared delivery of services and public sector reform – it is very easy for children and young people, who are the least able to advance a case for themselves, to be forgotten,” says Catherine Fitt, Strategic Director for Children’s Services at the National College.

“This is the time, above all times, when we need to work to ensure that they do not drop off the agenda. The central challenge for children’s services leaders is to tackle these pressures while remaining focused on why they are there – ensuring children’s safety and wellbeing so they are able to be the best learners they can be, the best citizens they can be and have the best life they can have. This requires what people call a resourceful approach to children’s services leadership.”

A feature of resourcefulness involves remaining open to new possibilities, which is especially important during times of change. This need for openness is evidenced by the increased variety in the organisation and delivery of children’s services in England. For instance the joint National College/ADCS research found that 15 per cent of DCSs nationally had responsibility for a range of additional services, most notably in connection with adult social care, but in other instances this also extended to communities, neighbourhoods or housing. One DCS also reported having responsibility for sewage and airports. At the same time, the study found clear evidence that many DCSs were experiencing cuts in their senior leadership teams, thereby reducing the potential support available to them to address these concerns.

Matt Dunkley, President of ADCS and Director of Children's Services at East Sussex County Council, believes that this increase in the responsibilities attached to the DCS post could potentially present further opportunities for them to highlight the needs of children in other areas of work. However the reductions in senior leadership teams currently being experienced in many authorities may reduce their capacity to address these priorities, he says.

“The remit of the director of children’s services is already one of the broadest in local government, covering statutory and non-statutory services for all children and young people from 0-19. While a broader remit may have advantages in allowing for links to be made across agencies and departments and in ensuring children’s needs are considered in every aspect of public service provision, the broader the remit and the smaller the senior management team, it could become harder to maintain a focus on children and their needs.

“Directors of children’s services can’t know everything and a resourceful DCS will draw on the broader experience within the senior management team when making strategic decisions. Directors of children’s services will be concerned to maintain this mix of skills and expertise in any new arrangements.”

In this broader climate of ever-tightening resources, authorities are increasingly exploring ways to deliver services in more efficient ways. At one level, this involves pooling corporate resources across directorates within the authority. At another, it demands leaders look beyond the confines of their own organisation, for instance by contracting out services with private or third sector partners, or delivering services with a neighbouring authority. While such approaches may not be entirely novel within a local authority context and are yet to become the norm, they nevertheless represent a significant and interesting development for many authorities. They also place a premium on DCSs’ ability to lead collaboratively, identified in the study as a second key area of resourcefulness.

Matt sees being able to lead in partnership across organisational boundaries as a critical part of the DCS’ role. At the heart of this is being able to develop a common vision and clearly articulate its key principle as central to effective partnership work.

“Directors of children’s services have built up substantial knowledge and skills in collaboration and partnership working over the last few years and have seen the rewards that it can reap in terms of service quality and opportunities for improvement in all agencies,” he says.

“Collaboration rests on a shared vision of service quality, a shared acknowledgement of weakness and a shared plan for how to get from where you are to where you want to be. It requires the DCS to be articulate, persuasive and persistent – these skills will be needed more than ever if reducing resources are not to put an end to partnership working."

Patrick Scott, former DCS in York and co-author of the National College/ADCS research, also sees collaborative leadership, at a range of levels, as critical to the DCS’s role as a champion for children.

“It is simply not possible to achieve the improvements in outcomes for children we’re looking for if we work in isolation.”

“The DCS job is fundamentally about bringing people together and co-ordinating policy and practice at all levels. It is simply not possible to achieve the improvements in outcomes for children we’re looking for if we work in isolation,” he says.

“The interconnections and inter-dependencies in children’s lives are so complex they demand a joined-up approach at all levels. So it’s about promoting partnerships across all activities – from the lead member, to the director of health and from the headteacher to the individual health or social worker – reinforcing that partnership is essential at all points in the system if the interests of the child are to be protected. The real challenge, of course, is about adopting the sort of behaviour that makes this kind of leadership possible.”

Patrick is clear that the trends described mean that this emphasis on collaborative leadership of this nature is likely to increase further.

“There’s now considerable evidence that local government increasingly involves working across traditional boundaries. DCSs all over the country are being expected to work much more closely across departmental and local authority boundaries, partly, as a result of reductions in available funding, but not exclusively so. The skills that they have developed in building children’s trust arrangements are precisely those that are needed in the new world of local government.”

In the short and medium term at least, the range of challenges facing DCSs is likely to grow, while at the same, the resources directly available to address them is expected to shrink.

In Catherine Fitt’s view, such changes will mean that resourcefulness will be more important than ever.

She says: “Directors of children’s services will need to continue to demonstrate this resourcefulness into the future. Leaders in local public services will have to model a new way of working and challenge their organisations to go further than they thought possible. And leaders will need to join up services across the authority and with other authorities and service providers, expanding their resource base as far as possible.

“One thing I am sure of is that good DCSs will retain a relentless commitment and determination to make sure that children and young people are given the attention they need.”

Dr Andrew Coleman is Head of Children’s Services Research and Development at the National College.