Austerity and pandemic stretching resources for children’s services, its new council director John Gregg says

Availability of resources, stretched by the pandemic, rising need and austerity, is the biggest challenge facing his sector, Peterborough City Council’s (PCC) new executive director for children’s services has said.

John Gregg, a former social worker and Ofsted inspector, began the £113K+ role in April this year after the provision of children’s services in the city became independent from Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC).

He was billed as the final addition to PCC’s new dedicated corporate leadership team, led by chief executive Matthew Gladstone, although there is now a vacancy for a legal and governance director due to a dismissal and an impending vacancy for a corporate services director due to a contract ending.

Mr Gregg told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that he hopes to help Peterborough become a “truly child-friendly city” during his tenure, with children “at the heart of everything we do” at the council.

This would mean better outcomes for children, he said, such as their doing better at school and going on to university or a successful job, with fewer children living in poverty or care or being subject to a protective plan.

But PCC, like all councils, is seeing a rise in demand due to “austerity and some of the challenges around the cost of living crisis”, Mr Gregg said, meaning “more and more people are needing more and more help at a time when there's less and less money”.

This doesn’t mean children won’t be able to access the services they need, he continued, but that the council may have less money for other services, such as “roads, bins, parking; things that affect residents on a universal level”.

The pandemic has also had a developmental impact on children due to the series of lockdowns, Mr Gregg said, and the council is seeing "more reliance and demand on emotional wellbeing and mental health services for children”.

Cuts to public spending have also meant that there’s less available for children now than before: “I’m confident that there are fewer services now than there were previously,” he said, adding that he is, however, relatively new to Peterborough’s specific landscape.

“There’s a mixed picture of what there is to do for children,” he continued; “there are some really positive and strong offers for some children, but for other children, less so.”

To improve the overall offering for children in Peterborough, Mr Gregg said that he is “working with partners and building relationships to ensure that, collectively, we deliver the best outcomes for children” with himself as system leader.

This is something he says he has experience in, having been director of children's services at Coventry City Council for eight years prior to his appointment in Peterborough.

“I led a programme of improvement following a judgement of ‘Inadequate’ by Ofsted in 2014,” he said, “through to 2022 when it was judged to be ‘Good’.”

Mr Gregg has worked at four different local authorities including Peterborough and has also previously been deputy director for social care regulation at Ofsted.