Agenda item

Report from the Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services.

Recommendations:

That Cabinet:

1.    Note the expectations outlined in the Families First Partnership Programme Guide issued in March 2025.

2.    Agree to the establishment of the governance structure for the management, oversight, and scrutiny of the Families First Partnership Transformation Programme and delegate approval of Terms of Reference to the Chief Executive in Consultation with the Leader and the Lead Safeguarding Partners.

3.    Approve the use of the new Children’s Social Care prevention grant to deliver transformation activity (30%), increased direct delivery of family help (50%), practice development, workforce development and ICT development (15%) and children and family voice (5%) as described in 2.15.

4.    Delegate authority in line with recommendation 3 (above) to the Strategic Director, Children and Young People’s Services in consultation with the Lead Member for, Children and Young People and the Assistant Director Financial Services. 

5.    Agree to receive a further update in November 2025 detailing the progress towards the expectations outlined in the Families First Partnership Programme Guide and expenditure of the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant.

Consideration was given to the report which provided an update on the published guidance relating to the Families First Partnership Programme. Approval was requested for the governance structure for the management, oversight and scrutiny of the Families First Partnership Transformation Programme, in accordance with the requirements of the Families First Partnership Programme Guide, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 and the Children's Social Care: national framework.

Agreement was also sought to delegate authority to the Strategic Director, Children and Young People’s Services in consultation with the Lead Member, Children and Young People and the Assistant Director Financial Services to determine the use of the new Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant in line with the expectations set out in the Families First Partnership Programme Guide.

The Families First Partnership (FFP) programme guide published in March 2025 provided clear expectations for safeguarding partners to transform how support and protection were provided to families, focusing on early intervention and prevention to avoid crisis situations. It emphasised a whole-family approach, bringing together multi-disciplinary professionals to support families in overcoming challenges and remaining together. The programme also involved greater family network engagement and stronger multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

The programme guide was not statutory guidance and did not replace existing statutory guidance, including Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023: or the Children's social care: national framework. Four chapters set out the vision for transformation in family support, to rebalance the system away from crisis intervention and toward earlier help and support; delivery expectations for Family Help, multi-agency child protection and Family Group Decision Making and key principles and system enablers and the national delivery support offer.

The Council had been allocated £2.083m children social care prevention grant in 2025/26. The grant was ringfenced for direct investment in additional prevention activity for children and families through the implementation of Family Help and Child Protection reforms. The grant was to be used alongside the existing Children and Families grants (inclusive of Supporting Families funding), which would enable continuation of existing prevention services.

In accordance with the draft grant determination letter, the £2.083m funding was to be used for the following activities:

1. Transformation – the Council was allowed to spend (as one-off and/or set up costs) a proportion of the funding (maximum of 30%) on transformation activity to increase readiness for system change, which would include the following: (1) establishing a transformation team including but not limited to a strategic lead, a senior project transformation lead, a project manager, secondment opportunities for key partners and commissioning, finance, HR and performance resource. (2) Buy-in dedicated resource from partners e.g. health, police, education, voluntary sector, such as secondment arrangements, to support the development of the delivery plan.

 2. Service Design – the grant funding was allowed to be used for (1) undertaking a joint family help needs analysis to inform new service delivery models; (2) stakeholder engagement (with local partners) to co-produce and design new service delivery models and strengthen multi-agency working and safeguarding arrangements. A diverse range of  service users and practitioners were expected to be engaged in the co-design process.

3. Service Delivery - the grant was expected to be used across the full breadth of preventative services, including Early Help, Family Help, Family Networks, and child protection. Service delivery costs were expected to include additional workforce and commissioned services to enable the Council to offer new and updated services for families and children, which met the policy principles set out in the Programme Guidance. Paragraphs 2.7 to 2.12 provided an indication of some of the key service changes expected from April 2025 to March 2026 and beyond.

A further update on the delivery of Phase 2 of the Early Help Strategy: Family

Help including the Families First Programme Transformation, would be brought to Cabinet in November 2025.

Resolved:

That Cabinet:

1. Note the expectations outlined in the Families First Partnership Programme Guide issued in March 2025.

2. Agree to the establishment of the governance structure for the management, oversight, and scrutiny of the Families First Partnership Transformation Programme and delegate approval of Terms of Reference to the Chief Executive in Consultation with the Leader and the Lead Safeguarding Partners.

3. Approve the use of the new Children’s Social Care prevention grant to deliver transformation activity (30%), increased direct delivery of family help (50%), practice development, workforce development and ICT development (15%) and children and family voice (5%) as described in 2.15.

4. Delegate authority in line with recommendation 3 (above) to the Strategic Director, Children and Young People’s Services in consultation with the Lead Member for, Children and Young People and the Assistant Director Financial Services.

5. Agree to receive a further update in November 2025 detailing the progress towards the expectations outlined in the Families First Partnership Programme Guide and expenditure of the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant.