Managing Rising Demand in Adult and Children’s Social Care: Lessons from English Local Authorities

William is CIPFA’s social care policy voice, and he runs the Social Care Network. His work focuses on social care reform, and he has produced thought leadership in the areas of charging reform, children’s social care reform, Scotland’s National Care Service, and social care funding. Before joining CIPFA, he was Social Care Finance Lead at the Scottish Government where he was involved in costing a range of social care reform policies stemming from the Independent Review of Adult Social Care. William attained a PhD in English Literature from the University of Glasgow and started studying accountancy during the final stages of his PhD.

Bernie is responsible for the strategic development and operational delivery of Adult Social Care services to the people of Manchester. She has always had a person-centred, strength-based approach which keeps people at the heart of everything we do. She firmly believes that working collaboratively, thinking differently and importantly valuing, developing and supporting staff, will enable us to support the people we serve to improve their health and wellbeing and achieve better outcomes in their lives. She has led the delivery of the Better Outcomes, Better Lives (BOBL) programme, Manchester’s ambitious long term transformation programme for Adult Social Care which builds on significant improvements implemented over the past few years. The programme is focussed on improving outcomes for residents, preventing reducing and delaying the need for care, by managing demand and embedding strengths-based practice at the front line. The programme was launched in January 2021 during the third national lockdown when the Council had a significant financial challenge.

John has worked in Children Services in a variety of Local Authorities for 30 years. He has been the Corporate Director Children and Young People (DCS) for Durham County Council, since September 2019 and prior to that held DCS/DASS roles in two other Councils. He has held regional and national roles through the Association of Directors Children’s Services (ADCS) for many years, becoming Vice President in 2022 and John was ADCS President for 2023/24. Prior to this he held the role of North East Regional Chair and a member of the ADCS Council of Reference.

John has a strong track record of improvement in Children’s services and has developed and led high quality services in different areas. He is a great believer in Sector-Led Improvement leading the establishment of the Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance in the North East. He has previously worked with Department for Education as a ‘Partner in Practice’ supporting system wide improvement and has also supported a local authority in intervention as the Independent Chair of an Improvement Board.