ADCS warns of risks to children as local government reorganisation accelerates

With 41 top-tier local authorities currently engaged in LGR – alongside the creation of new strategic authorities and major reforms to health and policing structures – ADCS members say the cumulative impact on safeguarding, SEND, early years and social care must be urgently assessed.

In a new paper, the association calls for the government’s appraisal of LGR proposals to include “an explicit, evidence-based appraisal of inherent risks, as well as benefits, of structural changes for children and for children’s services as well as local safeguarding partnerships”.

ADCS estimates that children’s services alone hold more than 300 statutory duties. It argues that the capacity of any new unitary authority to discharge those duties should be “a central consideration in the evaluation of individual proposals and bids”.

The paper highlights the legal responsibilities of directors of children’s services and lead members, as set out by the Department for Education in 2013, to improve outcomes for all children and to advocate on their behalf. These include supporting families to stay together where possible, protecting children from harm, arranging alternative care when necessary, ensuring access to education, and addressing issues affecting social and economic wellbeing.

ADCS also points to Section 10 of the Children Act 2004, which requires partners to cooperate with the local authority to improve children’s wellbeing, and warns that the shift of health and policing partners towards larger regional footprints could further strain multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

The paper additionally references the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, emphasising that children should be involved in the design and delivery of local services – a principle that risks being lost amid structural upheaval.

While the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) currently assesses LGR proposals against criteria such as financial sustainability, governance and local support, ADCS argues that “a child-focused risk assessment when existing children’s services are to be split, merged or both is not yet required”.

The association said: “LGR is not a neutral act for children.” It warns that reorganisation “can fragment critical multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, destabilise high-performing services, disrupt safeguarding partnerships, and delay improvement journeys if risks are not rigorously assessed and addressed.”

ADCS members state that “any proposed disaggregation or amalgamation of children’s services must demonstrate how it will ensure continuity of services and support for children, address and reduce inequalities and improve outcomes for children.”

Among the “material risks” identified are leadership instability and inexperience, workforce attrition, and the loss of specialist expertise in corporate services such as legal, HR and finance.

The paper warns of potential “drift and delay in assessing and meeting children’s needs”, breaks in supervision lines, delays in migrating records to new case management systems, and disruption to corporate parenting responsibilities.

Financial sustainability is also flagged as a major concern. Smaller, disaggregated authorities may struggle to withstand financial shocks, such as rising placement costs or home-to-school transport pressures. ADCS highlights the risk of losing economies of scale in commissioning, diluting sufficiency strategies for care placements, and inheriting complex legacy debts such as high needs block overspends or PFI commitments.

IT infrastructure presents another significant hazard, with the “safe migration and/or merging of case management systems” described as “a very significant risk”, alongside potential impacts on data reliability and performance reporting.

The paper also devotes attention to inspection and improvement trajectories, noting that LGR has the potential to destabilise high-performing services and interrupt improvement journeys.

Where local authorities are already subject to government intervention following poor children’s social care or SEND inspection outcomes, ADCS says LGR bids “should receive careful attention”.

It points to previous experience in Northamptonshire, where continuing Ofsted monitoring visits during reorganisation in 2020 was found to be helpful, and cites a 2018 commissioner’s report in Buckinghamshire, which stated that leadership and workforce in children’s services “should be formally and clearly protected from any organisational upheaval” and that no form of LGR should split commissioning or delivery of children’s services.

Although over two thirds of local authorities are now rated good or better for children’s social care, ADCS notes that many local area SEND partnerships remain subject to monitoring and intervention, underlining the importance of stable, system-wide leadership.

To mitigate risks and ensure consistent decisions across Whitehall, ADCS is urging ministers to introduce a specific focus or “improvement test” for children’s services within the LGR assessment framework.

It says action plans should explicitly address inspection outcomes, quality of practice and outcomes for children, workforce stability, partnership arrangements, financial sufficiency, and the effectiveness of both corporate and political support.

For social workers, students and Newly Qualified Social Workers (NQSWs), the message is clear: structural reform on this scale will shape practice conditions, supervision, partnership working and ultimately children’s lived experiences. ADCS argues that without rigorous scrutiny and coordinated national oversight, the risks to vulnerable children could outweigh the promised gains in efficiency and governance.