Given the scale and nature of the challenges facing children’s services, senior leaders now have to make a choice between undertaking further reform or launching into a genuine and comprehensive transformation programme. There has been so much reform activity over the recent past, be it ’Lean’-type initiatives, cost reduction exercises or workforce reform programmes, that there comes a time when all of these approaches will not individually or collectively deliver the size of change necessary. It is when this tipping point has been reached that organisations need to bite the bullet and elect for a genuine transformation approach. Some people will argue that it is not as black and white as that, but it certainly needs to be. Transformation programmes require a totally different mentality, approach and leadership style.
Reform programmes can be the equivalent of deciding to shake up a house by extending bedrooms, converting lofts or sorting out storage space in order to make it more habitable and effective. A transformation programme, however, involves removing all of the contents onto the front lawn and then having a fundamental review of what the house is there to achieve and how living there should feel. Only once this is established can the materials on the front lawn be sorted to establish what need to be taken back into the house in order to make it work in the way it has to. The approach to transform children’s services is equally as radical, and equally as challenging. It is about starting from the needs of children, and then designing from the bottom up a way of responding to this need with the resource that will be available in the future. It will involve taking a truly holistic approach for designing every single element of this future, including organisation structures, ways of working, skills, technology and culture. It is also about demonstration clear and decisive leadership in a way that everyone in the organisation is in no doubt that they are in a transformational situation, are clear how the programme will unfold and how it will impact them.
There is nothing new about transformation – Nokia started as a Finnish pulp mill and Lucozade used to be a drink for when you were poorly and sick before becoming all about health and energy. Bob Geldof is now a charity guru, Glenda Jackson an MP and Lenny Henry a Shakespearian actor – just to prove that anything is possible. However there are a number of stumbling blocks to a successful transformation, and it is amazing how the top ones are always there at the top, year in and year out, i.e.:
- The pressure of the ‘here and now’ causing insufficient focus on the transformation programme
- No dedicated resource for making it happen
- Insufficient alignment across the organisation on what to transform into
- Senior management do not provide sufficient support
- Poor approach, poor planning and poor execution
Of course there is an element of it being a ‘moving target’ at the moment, what with coalition policies still emerging and the future far from certain. It is also difficult to scope and launch significant transformation activity in the face of much more immediate challenges such as delivering in-year budget savings. But these challenges can be overcome – they just need to be factored in to the way the programme is designed and positioned.
Come what may any transformation is hard. It requires tenacity, commitment and a relentless focus on outcomes. But it does however provide tremendous opportunity for leaders to earn their corn and drive the creation of a future organisation fully equipped, motivated and committed to providing the kind of children’s services that local children need and deserve. When DCSs look back in ten years time will they be saying: “That period gave us a ‘once-in-history’ chance to pioneer new ways of working and create world-class services where not only children benefited, but so did everyone connected with our work. Necessity enabled us to develop previously unattainable levels of service and now people around the world contact us for advice on best practice and transformation strategy. Children are better off than they have ever been in history and our workforce is more satisfied than any public or private sector. Thank goodness for those ‘noughties’!” As challenges go, they do not come much better than this.
