On the Voluntary Children’s Services Trust and problems of being a Corporate parent

The fault lines of the proposed ‘Voluntary Children’s Services Trust’ model and its relationship with the Local authority started to appear at the discussion at Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The report prepared by Deloitte setting out the case for change for moving some social work services into a Trust arrangement was accepted by Council’s Cabinet and received backing from the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Groups.

A set of organisational options for a Trust were identified by Deloitte and a further report will be made to Cabinet in September setting out the preferred shortlist of models. Cllr Brigid Jones, the responsible Cabinet member,  also said the Council would undertake a ‘market testing’ exercise over the summer to identify whether there were sufficient people of the right sort who could serve as Trustees on a future Trust Board.

On options for the “Voluntary Children’s services Trust’

Dear Cabinet member,

The future of social work with children and families in Birmingham

On Tuesday you will consider a report prepared by Deloitte on the Birmingham children’s services model which sets out 19 potential models for delivering children’s social care services and a framework of critical success factors which a model would need to meet. The Cabinet report recommends that these different delivery models are appraised by Deloitte over the summer and a report with preferred options should be presented to Cabinet in September.