The National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) this year was a reminder of two truths about social care. First, the scale of reform ahead (across both children's and adults' services) is ambitious, urgent and system-shaping. And second, none of it will be delivered without the leadership capability to steer teams, services and partnerships through profound change.
Across the conference, directors from both sectors voiced the same underlying concern: Where is the next generation of senior leaders going to come from?
With local government reorganisation (LGR) on the horizon in some areas, a cohort of directors reaching retirement age and rising expectations from ministers, the leadership challenge is becoming more acute and more consequential.
To explore this further, the team and I at Tile Hill surveyed a wide range of senior social care leaders during the conference and our dinner. Their responses, combined with the insight from the conference, point clearly to the scale of the challenge.
Cautious optimism and a workforce under strain
When asked how optimistic they felt about social care leadership over the next 12-24 months, most respondents expressed confidence in their own ability to lead through the period ahead. More than 90% reported some level of confidence, reflecting a cohort of experienced leaders who feel capable of navigating immediate pressures and delivering on current reform agendas.
This confidence, however, was not shared in relation to the system as a whole. Optimism dropped when leaders considered the structural context in which that leadership would be exercised. When asked about the potential benefits of LGR, respondents scored their optimism at an average of 5.6 out of 10, with almost half unsure whether LGR would meaningfully improve integration between health and social care. This reflects the uneven pace and impact of reform, with some areas already operating under new arrangements and others yet to feel any material change.
Where views were most consistent was on workforce sustainability. Leaders repeatedly cited attraction and retention as the single biggest workforce challenge, followed closely by capability, wellbeing and culture. Confidence in being able to attract and retain the right leaders was modest, averaging 6 out of 10.
Taken together, these findings point to a clear picture: social care is currently led by confident, capable leaders, but the depth and resilience of the future leadership pipeline is far less assured. Without earlier and more intentional investment in developing the next generation, that confidence may not be sustainable.
Social care reform makes leadership capability even more critical
The ministerial speeches at NCASC set out an agenda that is both ambitious and interdependent. In children's services, Josh MacAlister described a full-system reset: a £2.4bn shift towards early intervention through Families First, a simplified and evidence-aligned national children's social care framework, a pledge to lift 550,000 children out of poverty, an expansion of foster and residential provision and the accelerated rollout of regional care cooperatives. New approaches to supporting care leavers through enduring relationships underlined the emphasis on stability and belonging.
In adult social care, Stephen Kinnock outlined commitments to workforce pay, direct payments, home adaptations and neighbourhood-level integration through the Neighbourhood Health programme. He acknowledged the historic undervaluation of social care and the need for cultural change across health systems to embed prevention, collaboration and person-centred support.
Meanwhile, Sir Martyn Oliver emphasised the vital role of capability in inspection and improvement. His focus on strengthening family-focused practice, improving sufficiency, refreshing the inspecting local authority children's services (ILACS) framework and developing a more skilled inspectorate again placed leadership at the centre of better outcomes.
Across all three areas, one message was clear to me: the success of social care reform depends on leaders who can navigate complexity, build partnerships, and drive cultural change with clarity and confidence. We see that in the roles we recruit and support every day.
The system needs more leaders than it currently has
What came through strongly in conversations with directors at NCASC was the concern that the pipeline for senior leadership roles is not deep enough. The sector is already experiencing shortages of directors of children's services and directors of adult social services. With many approaching retirement (and with LGR likely to create more statutory roles in some places, not fewer) the system faces a looming leadership gap. LGR does not create this leadership gap, but it does expose and intensify it. In many areas, LGR is acting as a stress test for the system, revealing where leadership capacity is already stretched and accelerating pressures that have been building for years.
The challenge is amplified by the specialist nature of these roles. To step into statutory positions, leaders need a combination of qualifications, deep system knowledge and significant experience. Beyond local government itself, the realistic talent pools are small – Ofsted, some children's charities, the Department for Education and a handful of specialist voluntary organisations. Cross-sector movement into social care can add diversity and fresh thinking, but it is not straightforward or always feasible.
This context brings our survey results into sharper relief. Leaders told us that the most critical skills for the years ahead include resilience, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, change management and the ability to collaborate with partners. These attributes align almost exactly with the capability demands embedded within the reform programmes.
What we're doing to strengthen the leadership pipeline
At Tile Hill, we recognise that recruitment alone will not address the system's leadership challenge. Supporting the pipeline is part of our responsibility as long-term partners in public service.
Much of this support happens quietly. We coach and mentor emerging leaders, offer detailed interview preparation, and continue supporting individuals after they step into senior roles. We are often a voice at the end of the phone or are connecting them with peers who have made similar transitions. Our consultants, particularly those who work closely in this space, often provide the informal mentoring that many leaders credit as pivotal to their confidence.
We also host webinars and sector conversations, with more scheduled in the coming months to help emerging and aspiring leaders understand the realities and expectations of senior roles.
And of course, the Different leadership development programme is already making a tangible contribution. Thirty per cent of the first cohort have moved into more senior roles before the programme has even concluded. It is a reminder that intentional development works and that the appetite for growth is strong.
This is what we can do with the resources we have, and we do it because it matters. Every leader we help develop today strengthens the resilience and capability of tomorrow's system.
Meeting the scale of the challenge requires a sector-wide response
If the reforms announced at NCASC are to be realised, councils and partners will need to act earlier and more intentionally on leadership development. That means identifying potential assistant directors, directors of children's services and directors of adult social services sooner, strengthening succession planning, creating clearer development pathways, improving support for global majority colleagues and embedding coaching and mentoring as standard.
The varied optimism in our survey reflects the uneven landscape of social care reform. But beneath it, the message was consistent – leadership capacity is the determining factor in whether the next phase of social care reform succeeds.
Tile Hill will continue playing our part in spotting emerging leaders, supporting their progression and partnering with councils to strengthen capability. But the challenge is bigger than any one organisation. If this moment is to represent a genuine reset for social care, we must collectively invest in the people who will lead it
Nik Shah is director – social care at Tile Hill
