BCFT Business Plan 2023-2027 (Update)

Bradford Children and Families Trust interim business plan was agreed between the Trust and Bradford Council in April 2023. This is a summary of the Trust’s annual update of the full business plan submitted in September 2023. The plan has been developed in close collaboration with the people who will make this Trust a success. So, this plan not only reflects the ambitions of leaders in the Trust, but it also captures the views of frontline staff and managers, key stakeholders from across the system and the partners whose support remains crucial for our continued progress.

The business plan has many purposes. It is the basis of the contract between the Council and the Trust to deliver services on their behalf, but also sets out the Trust’s ambitions and how these connect with strategic plans for the Bradford District. And it is the base for all our planning in the Trust.

This plan also drives the improvements needed to address the shortcomings in services identified by Ofsted which led to: the Secretary of State for Education issuing an Improvement Notice in December 2018; a direction from the Secretary of State, who also appointed a Commissioner in 2021; and, following an inspection in 2022, which found that services had deteriorated further, the creation of the Bradford Children and Families Trust in April 2023. The Trust is accountable to Government through the Department for Education whilst under this direction.

The national context for children’s services is challenging. The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care in England 2022, highlights that resources have been drawn towards expensive ‘late help,’ taking away from helping families earlier and often more impactfully. This picture is mirrored in Bradford, but we are working hard to change that.

There are wonderful opportunities in Bradford, but great challenges too, with high rates of poverty, and poor health for many, and profound inequalities.

The Trust’s inheritance has been and remains challenging, starting with high numbers of children in care and subject to child protection plans, coupled with real delivery challenges because of an insufficient and too often transitory workforce. Much has changed and the progress to date is summarised in the updated plan. Children’s Social Care services were significantly overspent against allocated budgets for several years, but the budget is now under greater control and savings are being delivered linked to better outcomes for children and for staff. Turbulence in leadership and the workforce since 2018 has been replaced with a stable leadership team of permanent staff and a significant increase in permanent staff at all levels.

Staff and partners are all committed to the changes needed and have supported and co-produced our progress so far. It’s clear from early work with staff and managers in the Trust, and with our partners, that there is huge commitment and energy to deliver the Trust’s ambitions.

The creation of an independent Trust has been a new beginning which creates new opportunities. We are determined to bring about continued improvements to these services, which impact on the most disadvantaged children in the Bradford district.  Our ambition is for services to be operating at Ofsted ‘good’ level. The Trust has Seven Priorities, and this plan highlights the ten most pressing actions which are making the biggest impact on those priorities and securing a platform for other improvements to be made: our Top Ten Delivery Imperatives.

We are delivering our priorities through our four core plans:

A Clear Financial Strategy

Underpinning all of the Trust’s work is a Medium-Term Financial Plan framing a robust and creative approach to managing available resources. We are committed to living within our agreed resources and will use the flexibility of the Trust as an independent company to seek additional funding wherever possible.

Priority One – strengthened services to provide earlier help for children and families:

We are continually strengthening our early help arrangements through local family hubs, based in the heart of local communities and founded on a strong understanding of the diverse needs of local people. We are expanding and continue to develop our family help prototype offer, with enhanced intensive help for those families under the greatest pressure. Sticking with families to reduce handovers is a fundamental principle of our Family Help Service. Our targeted youth support, family support and family help form a consistent offer of family help which reduces the need for social work involvement and ultimately reduces the number needing to come into our care. Together with partners we will strengthen the maturity of the wider early help system to reduce the need for later support and already have evidence of a reduction in children needing to come into care.

Imperative: Deliver and upscale a wider range of effective and impactful Early Help and Family Help interventions alongside our partners.

Priority Two – improved quality of relationship-based practice and decision making with a clear focus on outcomes:

We have a relentless focus on ensuring that we get the basics right and that we consistently do the simple things well. We are getting alongside children and families with a ‘Family First’ commitment, which will empower them to be part of the solution through the co-production of plans. Families report that they feel that they are able to make decisions about their own lives through family group decision making and family help, with networks of support being engaged. We have laid firm foundations for better relationships with families by threading restorative and relational practice in the way that we work with children and families. We are using professional case audit to understand and improve the quality of practice. We are improving practice by evidencing that we are making a positive difference through the work we are doing. This has been supported by manageable caseloads, improved management oversight and continued focus on stabilising the workforce.

Imperative: Continue to improve social work practice and do the simple things well

Imperative: Embed an environment where social work can flourish

Priority Three – better choices for local care:

The children in our care need the right homes and right support to be their best selves and we set out our plans to achieve this in our updated Sufficiency Strategy. We are focused on children only being in care for as long as they need it and we are progressing plans for them to be cared for at home or within their extended family by the people who love them and know them best when it is safe to do so.  We are working to improve choices of care for our local children by building fostering and residential capacity so that we are able to care for children with a wider range of needs in our own provision and reduce the high costs of any unnecessary out of area provision.  We have made a successful bid for government funding to develop 2 specialist therapeutic children’s homes for children with acute and complex needs which will avoid them needing hospital care, often at a distance from Bradford.  We are offering appropriate homes for care leavers, including those who are unaccompanied asylum-seeking, and high-quality support into adult services where these are needed.

Imperative: Embed our strategic approach to sufficiency

Priority Four – The Trust being alongside children and families to empower them to cope better:

We are listening intently to understand children and their families and make sure that we support them in making safe decisions and plans in response to identified needs. Our newly appointed Voice and Influence Lead  will enable us to hear more about what they think and need and respond to that in our service planning through co-production for the future. We are focused on “do with, not to” to ensure that children and families feel valued in the way we work.

Imperative: Embed a child and family engagement framework

Priority Five – stronger partnerships:

We continue to focus on developing strong and resilient partnerships that build effective multi-agency work at all levels and we do this through shared and consistent priorities. Good local collaboration on the ground, in multi professional teams, is becoming the basis of cross agency collaboration. Our strategic partnerships will be based upon impactful analysis of need and agreed priorities delivered through joint strategies and plans for the future. We have been rebuilding shared trust with our partners, and this is progressing well and will continue as we progress our transformation journey. This has been evidenced through the effective working of several multiagency strategic and operational groups including the Prevention & Early Help System Board, the Bradford Children’s Executive Group and the Bradford Safeguarding Partnership new governance arrangements amongst others.

Imperative: Develop and maintain close cross-system partnerships.

A Better Place to Work

Priority Six – a culture that enables the Trust to be a beacon of good practice:

We continue to take forward, through the People and Culture Plan, work that ensures we are not only meeting our current and future workforce needs, but also shaping an inclusive, values-led culture that enables the Trust to be recognised as a beacon of good practice.

Our focus is on making the Trust a place where people feel proud to work, want to stay, and can thrive through meaningful development and progression opportunities.

Attracting and retaining a permanent, experienced, and diverse workforce remains vital, but it is now part of a broader ambition to create an environment in which high standards, innovation, and shared purpose flourish. We have made significant progress in increasing workforce stability, recruiting permanent colleagues and reducing the number of agency workers, with the aim of growing our future workforce both through supporting internal development working collaboratively through initiatives like the Bradford Teaching Partnership, and local social work and other relevant training providers. These partnerships continue to provide strong foundations to support a sustainable and skilled workforce that reflects the communities we serve.

We recognise the opportunity for local public sector organisations to collaborate more closely to build a highly skilled, values-driven local workforce – one that supports integrated, person-centred services and long-term career pathways.

Our ambition is driven by a commitment to deliver for the communities we serve. This shapes not only what we do, but how we do it – fostering a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and high performance, underpinned by our INSPIRE Values. These values define our identity and guide our choices, behaviours, and priorities.

Our people are at the heart of our success. We are committed to engaging meaningfully with staff, listening to their views, and empowering them through strong leadership, effective management, and opportunities to grow. We have invested in a new Management Development programme, equipping our manager with the tools needed to support and develop their teams. We are building a culture that values contribution, encourages innovation, and supports wellbeing – enabling everyone to perform at their best and deliver the right outcomes for children, families, and communities.

Since our establishment in April 2023, we have focused on building the foundations for success – developing a suite of Trust policies that support the transition into our new way of working and establishing a fresh, collaborative relationship with staff and managers. Our People and Culture Plan is central to this journey and continues to drive how we develop a culture of excellence across the Trust.

Imperative : develop a stable workforce

Imperative: create a culture of excellence

Organisational Effectiveness Plan – An Efficient and Effective Organisation Work

Revised Priority Seven – Harness technology and best practice to transform services and evidence impact:

We will harness best practice by adopting an ambitious and achievable pathway co-produced with external expertise where appropriate to support our continual improvement journey.  Our partnership with the Council, as the provider of many of our core IT systems and support will be central to our success.

To support the Trust’s ambition to become a digitally enabled, efficient, financially sustainable and impact-driven organisation, we are planning to launch the THRIVE Programme in 2026/27. THRIVE stands for Technology, Help, Resources, Innovation, Value, and Efficiencies – a transformational initiative to strengthen the delivery of social care, prevention, and early help for children and families, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the enabling services that support our direct services. This initiative is designed to harness technology, streamline services, and embed value-driven innovation to improve outcomes and reduce costs throughout the organisation. The Trust will review existing systems, implement new digital platforms and smarter workflows, co-design improvements with staff, children and families to ensure relevance and impact and savings and efficiencies that contribute to a sustainable future.

To support this vision, we must invest in and maintain a flexible, modern IT architecture that meets the digital needs of our internal teams, the children and families we serve, and our external partners. This will be key to improving organisational efficiency and collaboration. 

THRIVE will be a key enabler of our Organisational Effectiveness Plan, supporting the delivery of our strategic priorities and reinforcing our commitment to innovation, value for money, and continuous improvement.

Revised Imperative: Develop a performance management approach

Revised Imperative: Work with the Council as Strategic Partners

New Imperative: Implement a THRIVE programme to deliver efficiencies

The role of the Board is to set strategic aims for the Trust, oversee the management of the business and hold the Executive Leadership Team to account. It is the responsible body for the performance of the Trust for its legal and contractual obligations and achieving outcomes for children in the Bradford District.

The governance arrangements for the Trust are in its Articles of Association. The Service Delivery Contract with the Council shows how the trust will work with the Council to ensure priorities and objectives specified within the contract are delivered, how decisions are made and how the Trust is held to account.

Working with the Council is through the Operational and Strategic Joint Working Groups: regular meetings between the Trust Chief Executive and the Council Chief Executive; Executive Director of Children’s Social Care and Practice in the Trust and Council Lead Member; and close working with the statutory Director of Children’s Services and Council Director of Finance.

Bradford Council exercises the statutory responsibility for delivery of children’s services through the Director of Children’s Services who is a member of the Council’s leadership team. The Council remain closely involved with providing support and

challenge to ensure best results for children, alongside carrying responsibility for Education in the Council.

The Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee is responsible for overseeing outcomes for children for the Bradford District. It monitors support for vulnerable children through the Children’s Social Care Improvement Plan.

The Council’s Corporate Parenting Board ensures that the Council fulfils its duties as a corporate parent to children in Care and Care Leavers.

How we will work with partners

Partnership working is essential to hold together the efforts of all public sector, community and voluntary organisations to benefit the lives of local people. In practice this means a shared vision, a joint mission, approach, with joint commissioning to underpin delivery.

We believe that keeping vulnerable children and young people safe from harm is everyone’s responsibility and that collectively we will only be successful if all partners work together across the District. The commitment to children and young people is reflected in the revised District Strategy. Everyone who works with children, families and young people in Bradford shares responsibility for improving outcomes for the most vulnerable children, young people and families.

The Trust will play an active role working alongside our strategic partners in the Bradford, Safeguarding Children Partnership, the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Bradford and Craven District Partnership. We will continue to strengthen working at strategic and operational level with our key delivery partners in the police, health and education sectors. We will continue to build strong links with local voluntary and community partners.