Croydon Council has appointed Newton as its Strategic Transformation Partner to spearhead a comprehensive redesign of its Children, Young People and Education (CYPE) Directorate. The move aims to address significant demand pressures and ensure long-term financial sustainability for services supporting approximately 95,000 children and young people.
The 'Helping Families Thrive' (HFT) Programme is central to this transformation, aiming to deliver a sustainable, high-quality model of services that improves outcomes for children and families while addressing increasing demand and financial pressures. The programme has already seen progress in establishing stronger data insights, improving commissioning capacity, and reshaping how services collaborate. However, further pace and scale of change are required to meet future demand within the available financial envelope.
The partnership, a key component of the 'Helping Families Thrive' programme, will focus on transforming services to improve outcomes for children and families. Phase One of the partnership, which involved understanding current performance, demand, and cost drivers, has concluded with a draft diagnostic and service design. A crucial 'Go/No-Go' decision point will determine if Croydon proceeds to Phase Two, which will involve piloting and implementing the redesigned services.
Emerging themes from Phase One highlight the need for a more integrated system, with closer alignment between education, social care, and partner agencies. A focus on relational and trauma-informed practice is also central to the proposed redesign, alongside simpler and more coherent pathway models for accessing support. Improved use of data and organisational efficiency are also key objectives. Specifically, the transformation efforts are considering a step change in how data is used, including improved integration of datasets, stronger analytics capability, and better use of insight to inform decision-making. Opportunities to improve organisational efficiency and effectiveness through clearer structures and alignment of roles to end-to-end pathways are also being explored.
However, implementing these proposed integrated and relational practice models presents potential risks and challenges. These include significant demand pressures on services, such as high referral rates to children's social care and a rapid increase in Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). Sustained numbers of children in need and children in care, coupled with a lack of early intervention, can lead to escalation into costly, statutory services. Insufficient local provision can drive reliance on high-cost external placements, and financial pressures within placements, workforce, and SEND provision continue to grow. Without change, demand-led expenditure will continue to outpace available resources, creating increasing instability across the system. Fragmented pathways between services mean families often need to tell their stories multiple times, leading to multiple transitions between early help, social care, and specialist provision, resulting in duplication of assessment and planning, and increasing cost and inefficiency. Furthermore, staff sickness, vacancies, and difficulties in recruiting permanent staff, exacerbated by perceptions of high caseload volumes in Croydon, pose further challenges. Delays in the completion of professional reports, particularly within Educational Psychology and health services, also contribute to these pressures.
The Scrutiny Children & Young People Sub-Committee received updates on these transformations during their meeting on Tuesday, 30 June 2026. Councillor Michael Neal, Chair of the Sub-Committee, noted the ongoing work to address challenges in areas such as the timely issuance of EHCPs and the proportion of child protection plans lasting two years or more. The committee also reviewed the Early Help, Children's Social Care and Education Dashboard for March 2026.
Regarding the timeline for Phase Two, the piloting of a Family Help model in the South Locality of Croydon is planned to commence in September 2026, with a phased rollout to the rest of the borough by the end of March 2027. This follows the conclusion of Phase One and the critical 'Go/No-Go' decision.
Further details on the committee's discussions can be found in the Public reports pack 30th Jun 2026 and the Agenda frontsheet 30th Jun 2026.
