Child Services to be restructured

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

A new broom could be sweeping away the problems in Children’s Services, as councillors are told the department will be restructured.

This will allow staff to be able to support children and adults according to the new head of Powys County Council’s (PCC) Children’s Services, Jan Coles.

She told the Health, Care and Housing Scrutiny Committee, that a consultation on the restructure will take place in January as the current structure had “failed”.

Ms Coles outlined some of the changes she is hoping to implement while going through the departmental report for October which showed improvements.

Liberal Democrat Group Leader, Cllr James Gibson-Watt, who represents Glasbury, said: “Yes it’s an improving picture but the spend is really high.

“We will have to stop spending one day as it’s having an impact on other services. It’s protected for the time being but at unsustainable levels.

“Yes we are hitting assessment targets, but we’ve had to create special teams to do that. What worries me is how fragile is this?”

Ms Coles replied: “The staff are incredibly dedicated and really committed to make certain this service functions well. The second thing that struck me is that they are working in a structure that does not allow them to do the best work they can do.

“The structure we currently have has failed and has failed the children we are seeking to serve. That has been widely recognised. We’re going to be carrying on the restructure which will be done in a phased approach.

“The staff recognise they have been working in a way that has not enabled them to do the best for children and young people.”

Ms Coles believed that this was a reason why PCC is struggling to recruit permanent staff.

She hoped a new structure could see former PCC staff return to the department.

Ms Coles, added: “I’m really optimistic, the Well-being Act gives us an amazing opportunity. The Children’s Act asked us to have a drawbridge and ask for a special password before people could pass through to Children’s Services.

“What we need now is the draw bridge down and when people ask us for support we have levels of support ready for them. That’s where we will be focussing our funding.

“Instead of paying £7,500 for a child placement, we should have been working with the family two years ago when they first came for support. The restructure will take into account how to stem the demand rather than deal with the flow coming through.”

Ms Coles took the councillors through the report highlighting some successes.

“I was really pleased to see that performance is improving across the service,” she said pointing out that ‘looked-after children visits’ were at 98% and that the Welshpool team achieved 100% of their child protection visits.

She added: “The improvement in October has been achieved despite increasing demand. The number of assessments, statutory visits and contacts all increased.”