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Council reorganisation is ‘not a neutral act' for children, and risks distracting key partnerships and leadership from the task of improving services and outcomes.Speaking to the ADCS vice-president Colin Foster ahead of the organisation's annual conference this week in Manchester, one aspect of local government reorganisation (LGR) he is also concerned about is the workforce challenge for directors of children's services (DCS).Despite the National Audit Office warning that children's services is one of the directorates with the potential to ‘bankrupt' new councils, given the scale of reform, including new legislation while unitaries are being set up, ministers are insisting they are sticking to their timetable to announce their next round of LGR decisions before the middle of this month.Foster says between 40 and 50 additional DCS are likely to be needed. His arithmetic is based on the number of new unitaries being created in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, where five authorities currently delivering children's services will be replaced by 11 unitaries.Foster's workforce concerns are around capacity and capability. He tells The MJ: ‘Are there the people out there to be effective directors of children's services?' He also points to a previous example of reorganisation, when ‘the majority of the workforce who wanted continuity went to one authority area, and that left the other one without consistent senior leadership'.He says the other authority ‘is likely to get other people in from elsewhere that may not understand the context and are often interims, and the consistency of support for children isn't necessarily going to be there'.Foster warns that ‘naïvely' structuring a new local authority, done without experience of children's services, is a significant risk. He says staff could have their employment transferred under Transfer of Undertakings regulations (TUPE), but end up not having a post. He cites the example of child exploitation hubs. ‘If an organisation has a child exploitation hub and splits, their staff will be TUPE'd into the system design that the continuing authorities create. If one authority thinks child exploitation hubs are a great idea but the other two don't, then that approach to child exploitation will be diminished in the authority areas that don't continue it.'The ADCS highlights the Department for Education Aspirant Directors Programme, a leadership development programme to build a pipeline of senior leaders who are likely to step into DCS roles in the next few years. But there are questions about whether they will want their first role to be within a wholly new authority.He says another risk of LGR is that older staff across the children's workforce will leave, leading to extra dependence on agency staff. ‘If you look at the age range of our workforce, I can say that locally 30% of our workforce is 55 plus. So there may also be opportunities for redundancy.'He guesses that the average age of DCS is ‘around early 50s and if you're over 55 and your job is in effect redundant, that could also see people being pulled out of the sector'.‘So not only will we need the extra DCS, we may lose others who are very experienced in the sector.' He says ADCS members are ‘really clear that any proposed disaggregation or amalgamation must demonstrate how the stability of the workforce is going to be maintained'.Foster warns that ‘naïvely' structuring a new local authority, done without experience of children's services, is a significant risk. He says staff could have their employment transferred under Transfer of Undertakings regulations (TUPE), but end up not having a post. He cites the example of child exploitation hubs. ‘If an organisation has a child exploitation hub and splits, their staff will be TUPE'd into the system design that the continuing authorities create. If one authority thinks child exploitation hubs are a great idea but the other two don't, then that approach to child exploitation will be diminished in the authority areas that don't continue it.'But LGR will also present benefits, he argues, offering opportunities to align children's services with housing and home-to-school transport and provide housing for care leavers. ‘The best outcomes post-18 are if you've been planning since the age of 16 what the onward journey looks like.'Foster has been chief executive of Northamptonshire Children's Trust for almost six years following the failure of children's services at the former Northamptonshire CC and the reorganisation of local government in Northamptonshire. One of the reasons the trust was set up countywide was to provide continuity and protect work on improvement during LGR. Does he believe a trust model is still a valid approach to providing children's services post-LGR? He says: ‘Local authorities should be responsible for their own children's services. In cases of extreme failure of services the trust model works.'He highlights the LGR inspection challenge Ofsted will face. Currently they inspect children's services in 153 local authorities, ‘but if we have another 40, how are the inspection arrangements going to work, and are there sufficient Ofsted inspectors?'The increased demand for inspection capacity could see a further exodus of DCS to the inspectorate, he points out. ‘All of a sudden you could see some really good leaders going over to Ofsted.'Finally, when it comes to local decisions on LGR, he urges the Government to provide ‘a gateway of, "do we believe this model, this proposal, will deliver effective children's services"? I think that would help'.

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CHILDREN'S SERVICES

LGR's shadow over children's welfare

By Ann McGauran | 08 July 2026

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