ADCS

Welcome to the East Midlands Regional Page

Gareth Williams, East Midlands Regional Chair

Update From The 2010/11 Annual Report

The major focus for development across the Midlands has been through funded activity agreed with the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Programme (RIEP). Four themes have been agreed, with each led by a DCS and included a steering group of Assistant Directors from every Local Authority. All of this work can be seen at jriep.com

In addition, the East Midlands DCSs continue to benefit from the support of SDSA, an organisation established to support Children’s Services within the region.

1. Children’s Workforce led by Anthony May, DCS Nottinghamshire. This group has developed two areas of work:

• The development and adoption of minimum regional standards for use of the Common Assessment Framework with multi-agency partners
• Advanced Leadership in an Integrated Children’s Service Environment (ALICSE) - modules for leadership succession planning in children’s services. This is a major leadership programme developed and delivered ‘in house’ for 100 participants over the year. DCSs contribute alongside keynote speakers and five local universities provide accreditation. This work has also benefited from support from National College.

2. Assured Safeguarding led by Peter Duxbury, DCS Lincolnshire. This work initially targeted the DCS and Lead Member and led to the creation of a really useful resource Assured Safeguarding that has been well-received locally and within some national programmes. Further editions are currently in production to provide similar support for GPs/health leaders and schools settings.

3. Commissioning led by Bruce Buckley, DCS Derbyshire. This group, supported by the Commissioning Support Programme, has been targeting its activities through the Shaping the Market project to secure benefits for looked after children and then widen the approach to bring all high cost placements into scope. A regional framework contract is now in place that is enabling local authorities to jointly save around £2m per year with prices fixed for four years.

Working closely with regional directors of adult social services colleagues we are currently developing a two-year programme for 2011-13 to extend these developments to reach other high-cost placements and families, looking to secure savings and improvements through collaborative procurement and service re-design.

4. Health Inequalities led by Carol Chambers, DCS Rutland. This group has established strong links with East Midlands Strategic Health Authority. The shared objectives have been to improve health data and information, and to work with every Children’s Trust to focus on reducing obesity and to support child poverty needs assessments and strategies. Outcomes include:

• an anthology of international multi-agency practice shown to have impact on childhood obesity (to be available May 2011);
• two local authorities working with Local Government Improvement and Development (LGID) to produce guidance for Children’s Trust partnerships on effective leadership roles and responsibilities in joint strategies to reduce obesity;
• A regional child poverty support group, working with LGID, the Centre for Excellence in Outcomes for Children and Young People (C4EO) and Child Poverty Unit to strengthen needs assessments and develop effective strategies.