The topic of the Research was Children’s Trusts as the delivery vehicle for Integrated Children’s Services. The Research explores what these developments mean for service delivery in practice, for organisational identity and autonomy, for lines of accountability, and whether the new structures should be viewed as a new ‘organisational form’, or as ‘arrangements’ for market management.

Primary data was gathered through focus groups and one to one interviews with young people and with staff.  The topic for exploration was whether the roll out of Integrated Services demands conformity that constrains diversity of service provision (respondents preferred ‘consistency’ to ‘conformity’).  A useful theoretical framework for understanding Children’s Services was found to be ‘the market’, in which commissioning has a key role in meeting identified need by matching supply of services with demand. It was observed that ‘commissioning’ takes place at individual, operational and strategic levels, and as an activity it is not confined to ‘commissioners’. The principle findings were that the Children’s Trust should be an enabler not a provider of services; that the Trust’s role was to regulate the market by achieving consistency through common standards and common processes, it need not be the sole commissioner of services for children and young people. These findings were consistent with emerging research and with Government guidance moving from the Children’s Trust as an organisational ‘form’ to ‘arrangements’. The lighter touch of ‘arrangements’, allows continuation of the diversity valued by our respondents; but that diversity remains threatened by market forces driving towards consolidation. 

 

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