As I sit down to write, we are just coming to the end of the week during which our Council budget for the year ahead – 2025/26 – has been set. It doesn’t matter how many times you sit through a budget setting meeting and consider the papers, you are always reminded of the plethora of services councils are both responsible for and deliver.

From potholes to planning, from bin collections to cultural art – no other business would have such an eclectic range of demands or, at times, face such high expectations as to what needs to be delivered to local residents.

After appropriate consideration, due diligence and challenge, a balanced budget has been set. Levels of risk appetite have been questioned, frustrations voiced (in relation to necessary savings), but the need to cut our cloth as befits the climate of our times has at last been settled. All whilst acknowledging that you need the wisdom of Solomon to know what the economic future may bring; be that on the international geo-political stage, the regionalisation considerations, or the local challenges – all of which play out differently for us all.

As leaders in children services, however, often managing some of the largest, and most volatile, budgets for councils, there can’t be a DCS in the country who has not been able to hold their frustration in how we would like to invest the resources we have, compared to how we see our budgets spent.

The collective spend on three areas alone: the High Needs Block, managing levels of social work agency spend, and the eye-watering bills of children’s residential care, means it often feels difficult not to be dismayed. Therefore, in the roles we have, it continues to be critical to collectively voice the importance of continued investment into children and young people’s lives, and the services we know that can make a real difference to them.

This investment cannot of course just be financial, as we support our children to grow and develop, to feel equipped and prepared so they can face the challenges of the world and enter adulthood with confidence and hope. We know they can achieve better than many before them.

So, as we move nearer to the end of one financial year and look towards the start of another, we must hold onto the belief that with each pound invested in services for our children and young people, we are investing in securing a more stable future for us all.