Failing children's services to face takeover

Local authority social services that persistently fail young people will be taken over by other high-performing local authorities, children’s charities or "teams of experts", according to new plans unveiled by the government today.

Those children's services judged to be inadequate by Ofsted will be given six months to improve or they will be taken over.

"We, the state, are their parents; and we are failing them," David Cameron said in a statement.

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"It is our duty to put this right," the prime minister added.

The broad principles of the changes were set out in September, the Guardian reports, but the details are being set out in full for the first time today.

The new plans include:

• More than £100m to attract more high-calibre graduates into social work by expanding the successful programmes, Frontline and Step Up
• Working with six of the country’s best local authorities, North Yorkshire, Hampshire, Tri-borough (Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea), Leeds, Durham and Richmond & Kingston to give academy-style freedoms to high-performing authorities
• A drive to recruit new trust sponsors from the charity sector to help deliver innovative children's services. The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, will chair a roundtable event in the new year with local authorities and major charities such as Barnardo's and the NSPCC
• A new What Works Centre, to make sure social workers learn from the best practice in the country.

The changes follow a series of child abuse scandals across the country as well as an independent report which claimed police officers are failing to protect children from abuse.

"It shows how serious we are about confronting state failure and tackling some the biggest social problems in our country," the Prime Minister said.

"Together we will make sure that not a single child is left behind."

NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless told the BBC he welcomed the changes, saying too frequently services had failed to protect children.

"When this happens, swift action is an absolute priority to prevent tragedies that shame us all," he said.

"And we need to ensure that if tragedy does befall a child, that we then learn the lessons from serious case reviews, something that year after year is not done."

A spokesperson for the children's charity Barnardo's said it too welcomed the changes, but warned the government that those taking over the failing services must have the relevant expertise.

The charity's chief executive, Javed Khan, said: "We need to ensure we have the best possible services across the UK to support children and families, especially those who are most vulnerable."