Working together to improve support for children and families in Swindon
In May 2025, Swindon Borough Council made changes to its leadership arrangements to create greater capacity and focus around the improvement of Children's Services.
Following those changes, we invited the Local Government Association to carry out an independent Test of Assurance. This helped us identify where we could provide greater clarity about how our leadership arrangements work in practice.
We brought those arrangements together in a Ways of Working Framework for Children's Services, Education, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), Prevention and Communities.
The framework provides greater clarity about the arrangements already in place. It explains how our leaders and services should work together around children, young people and families in Swindon.
What is the Ways of Working Framework?
Put simply, the framework sets out how leaders across Children's Services, Education, SEND, Prevention and Communities work together.
It makes clearer who is responsible for what, where decisions should be made, how information and concerns are shared, and what happens when an issue or risk needs to be escalated.
It also helps make sure leaders have the time and capacity to focus on the things that need their attention most. This includes the continued improvement of Children's Services.
Why does this matter?
We know that children and families do not experience the Council through departments, directorates or organisational structures. They experience whether services work well together around them.
That might mean different services working together to support a family, decisions being made at the right time, or concerns being identified and acted on earlier.
We want our leadership arrangements to support that way of working.
The framework is intended to help us:
- make responsibilities and decision-making clearer
- strengthen how services work together
- identify and respond to risks and issues earlier
- reduce services working in isolation
- strengthen how we work with schools, health services, the police and other partners
- maintain a strong and sustained focus on improving Children's Services
How does it work?
Leaders have clear responsibilities and authority to lead their areas. There are also arrangements for sharing information, monitoring performance and escalating issues when necessary.
The Director of Children's Services continues to hold statutory responsibility and accountability for education and children's social care.
Operational responsibility for Education and SEND is delegated to the Director of Education, with clear arrangements for oversight, assurance and escalation.
This means decisions can be made at the right level while the Director of Children's Services retains the oversight needed to fulfil their statutory responsibilities.
It also allows the Director of Children's Services to maintain a strong focus on the Children's Services Improvement Journey.
The framework supports leaders across different services to share information and look at risks and performance together. They can take collective responsibility for issues that cross service boundaries.
What should children and families notice?
Most children and families will not need to know about the framework or how our leadership arrangements work.
What matters is what they experience.
Over time, we want children, young people and families to experience services working together more effectively around their needs.
That means better joined-up working, clearer and more timely decisions and issues being addressed earlier.
It also means different parts of the Council and our partners working together when people's needs cross service boundaries.
Ultimately, the success of these arrangements will be judged by whether they help us improve outcomes and experiences for children, young people and families in Swindon.
Find out more
If you would like to understand more about the arrangements:
- Ways of Working Framework summary guide (PDF) provides a shorter explanation of the framework, why it has been developed and what it means in practice. It also includes frequently asked questions.
- Ways of Working Framework (PDF) provides the detailed arrangements covering leadership responsibilities, delegation, governance, decision-making, assurance and escalation