New children’s commissioner for Northamptonshire County Council set to be announced this week

A new children’s commissioner for Northamptonshire will likely be announced this week according to the county council leader.
A new children's commissioner for Northamptonshire County Council will be appointed shortly by the governmentA new children's commissioner for Northamptonshire County Council will be appointed shortly by the government
A new children's commissioner for Northamptonshire County Council will be appointed shortly by the government

Since the publication of a poor Ofsted report into children’s services last autumn, the government has appointed and sent in a commissioner to oversee the service.

However, the first commissioner to be appointed by Westminster, Malcolm Newsam, recently resigned from the position. The reasons behind Mr Newsam’s decision are not yet known, though he had recently been criticised by councillors for not being present at meetings and they had passed a motion calling on him to appear before them.

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Just days later he resigned and his replacement is set to be announced shortly according to county council leader Matt Golby.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting this afternoon (October 8) at One Angel Square, he said: “Children’s services is the whole focus for us as a cabinet. We had a meeting with the chief executive [Theresa Grant] this morning to talk about the need to move it on. We are expecting an announcement this week hopefully from the Department for Education (DfE) on the new children’s commissioner, and we’re looking forward to receiving that.”

The DfE funds the commissioner’s position at the county council, and Mr Newsam’s successor will be expected to oversee the transition of the county’s children’s services into a new children’s trust which will be established alongside two new unitary authorities in 2021 which will replace the existing county and district/borough councils.