New director appointed for child services in Cornwall

Cornwall Council has appointed a new director to lead its services for children, schools and families in Cornwall.

Trevor Doughty, who will take up his new role on 12th May, has a wealth of experience in social care services.

A former social worker, he worked for both East Sussex and West Sussex County Councils before becoming director of social services at South Tyneside Council in 2000 where he helped transform the service from a "poor" rating to one assessed as serving most people well.

He joined Northumberland County Council as its director of children’s services in 2004.

The authority had failed its Ofsted inspection the previous year and Trevor successfully amalgamated services to create one of the first children’s trusts in the country.

He also developed and implemented a comprehensive post Ofsted improvement plan which led to children’s services being assessed as “good” in 2007, and played a key role in helping the Council to achieve an “excellent” rating in its CPA inspection.

When Northumberland became a unitary council in 2008, he became the authority’s director of children’s services and his role was expanded to include all of child community health on behalf of the NHS, as well as additional responsibilities for fire and rescue, community safety and emergency planning.

This involved managing a gross budget of £350m and approximately 8,000 staff, including schools.

Northumberland’s children’s services were highly rated in that year’s annual performance assessment, with safeguarding services receiving an “outstanding” score.

Welcoming the appointment, Alec Robertson, leader of Cornwall Council said: “This is undoubtedly one of the most important jobs in Cornwall at this time.

“We have made significant progress in addressing the issues identified in the Ofsted report over the past few months and are currently waiting for our improvement plan to be finally signed off by the Minister.

“We now need to implement the improvement plan and build on the progress which has already been made.

"Trevor’s background in social care and his impressive track record in working with partners to create high quality and effective children’s services make him an ideal person for this job."