The programme aims to measurably improve the physical health, behaviour, emotional health, literacy and numeracy, social literacy and job skills of Birmingham's children.

The strategic outcome of this transformation will be the move from reactive to preventative working, and the corresponding shift of resources from high cost specialist services to early intervention that meets the needs of children and young people.  As a result, resources will be distributed more efficiently, with preventative and targeted support meeting additional need earlier and significantly reducing the number of children with complex needs requiring intensive and expensive specialist services.

Benefits

There will be clear benefits in relation to better outcomes and life chances for children and young people.

At the same time, there will be benefits for the organisation, ranging from improved performance and work environments due to enhanced skill sets and competencies to more efficient service design and better value for money.

Finally as a result of this programme, the wider system in which children's services operate will have been transformed - moving from service led thinking to delivery based on outcomes, children's needs and evidence based programmes.

Approach

We took time to reflect, to build an evidence base and to take into account the experiences of children and young people and the perspectives of agencies and service users. Birmingham is the first local authority to have gathered data on the wellbeing of our children with 6000 children and 500 families consulted. Following six months of research, debate and consultation we published Brighter Futures, our strategy for transforming children's services.

We identified a small realistic set of priority outcomes that make sense locally and fit with national goals. These are to improve children's physical health, behaviour, emotional health, literacy and numeracy, social literacy and job skills.

We are piloting evidence-based programmes designed to improve these outcomes for children and young people. The pilots will be rigorously evaluated before being rolled out across the city.

Work is also taking place on organisational development to build capacity and skills within the children's workforce. We want to ensure that we are well placed to respond to future demands, and modernise working practices. This involves improving data accuracy with the introduction of a new case management system and the "Single View of the Child" database.