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Children's services: challenges for a new authority - a DCS think piece

Introduction

Central Bedfordshire Council came into existence on 1 April 2009, covering the former mid- and south-Bedfordshire district areas. Central Bedfordshire is home to approximately 250,000 people living in 105,000 households (2007 figures). It is estimated that housing growth will increase the population to over 280,000 by 2021, a 12 per cent increase.

In this think piece, and from the perspective of her dual role as Director of Children, Families and Learning and Deputy Chief Executive of the council, Edwina Grant talks about the challenges faced by children’s services over the coming months.

Our priorities and challenges...

Children are our most precious commodity and everyone, from our staff to parents and carers, wants Children’s Services to do well. Supporting children and their families is a stated top priority for the council.

In Central Bedfordshire, the Children, Families and Learning Directorate has two key responsibilities: integrated children’s services (which includes education and children’s social services), and culture and learning (which includes art, sports and libraries).

There are a number of key priorities for the Children, Families and Learning Directorate at present, and these bring with them some challenges.

The first is communications. At a time where there is a heightened level of public interest – and anxiety – about children’s services, communicating to our partners, staff and residents is our top priority. Our communications must be excellent at all times, and we will be working with our partners, including town and parish councils, to achieve this. Schools will play a significant role in helping to gather feedback and ideas for improvements in education. They will also support us in communicating directly with parents, carers and children, so that they too feel involved in the process of creating excellent children’s services in the area.

We are also currently considering the structure of our education system in Central Bedfordshire. A key priority for the Directorate is to guide Councillors through the difficult debate of whether to move to a two-tier system, 3 to 19 or stay three-tier.

We have already formed a working group of headteachers and governors to look at how education services can be improved. This group will help guide elected members through the decisions that need to be made. We will need to be transparent in this process, and welcome scrutiny from all corners. We will also continue to manage projects in skills development and the development of the future workforce.

Additionally, Central Bedfordshire has some very rural areas. Service provision – in terms of places to go, things to do, and availability of transport – is crucial for these areas. We will be talking to people about how we can enhance their leisure time and creating projects to meet their needs. Our aim is to help bridge the gap between our rural and urban areas, and create an area that all our residents enjoy living in.

Our next steps...

We have identified a number of immediate next steps which will guide our work over the coming months:

• The first is to support the opening of our first school academy, due to open in September 2009 in Dunstable.
• Secondly, we will be consulting on our special educational needs (SEN) provision in Biggleswade.
• During October we will be collating and responding to responses from our recent Children and Young People’s Consultation.
• Finally, we will be continuing to work with headteachers and governors to develop our programme for potential funding from the Building Schools for the Future (BSF).

Related resources

• Central Bedfordshire Council's website Provides a range of information on the council’s structure and services, including information on education and learning.
• Partnerships for schools Partnerships for Schools (PfS) is responsible for delivering the government's secondary school renewal programme, Building Schools for the Future (BSF).