19 year old in charge of Children’s Services for Leicestershire Council

Yes this! It won’t be the first time they’ve had to ‘manage upwards’.

Very true, I have a couple of friends who are salaried employees of our council and both say that some of the councillors they have to sometimes meet and liaise with do not have even a basic grasp of facts and issues.

Councillors (of any age) are not actually in charge of running anything.

there are full time paid experienced professionals in place who run the services

councillors are there to hold the paid professionals to account on behalf of the electorate.

your thread fundamentally demonstrates that you don’t understand how democracy and local services work.

I’ve missed this information, is that 6 in one council or over them all?

Anyone actually working in local government will be very well versed in dealing with inexperienced, hard of thinking elected members with no experience in the areas they’re ’responsible’ for.

Do not doubt he will be pushing Farage's views on SEND and that is very worrying and yes, he is too young no matter what his views. 19 is not old enough to be a portfolio holder

If you are good enough you are old enough... plenty of people who have worked in industries for years and are useless at their jobs. I don't see your point.

Quite!

Anyone who's ever worked at a senior level in local government will know how easy it is for officers to get councillors to make the decisions the officers want made, and to prevent them from making decisions they don't want. That's especially true in an area like children's services, where there's a strong statutory framework and where powers are fairly limited, since so much is devolved to school leaders.

Tbh, I'm more concerned that he's a Reform councillor than that he's only 19.

The outgoing person said the following: "This is a huge role with over 200 statutory duties as set out in the Children Act 2004"

Charles Pugsley is claiming to 'know the challenges our community faces'.

The only other information about him online is that he's just left his 35K a year private school. 😂

This. So much of CS relates to its statutory duties (e.g. schools under its control, cared for children, etc.) so there’s very little discretionary spending. Council budgets have been cut to the bone anyway so this is really about oversight. If you were, of course, concerned about any aspect of CS, you should write to him or send him an email. It’s important to find out if story time is on at the library, what books Year 1’s should be reading, whether the local leisure Centre does children’s swim time…

Having worked in several local Councils and had dealings with numerous Councillors, I can say that very many if them have no prior knowledge of the Departments that they oversee. They have no knowledge of the relevant legislation. They rely on the professional officers of the Council (the staff) to provide them with the relevant information.

She has, and is indeed very experienced and a thoroughly nice person to boot! edit to say (in a personal capacity, never been to work with her)

It's also not correct!

I know the real Director of Children's Services for Leicester and she's not a 19 year old young person.

I am a friend of the Director of Children and Family Services for Leicester. She is a middle aged woman, with a strong background in the field, and a very nice and capable person. What she is not is a 19 year old young man!

The Council as a whole votes through the budget. Then officers spend the money.

Recruitment is done through the Council with both officers and councillors on panels.

The strategy has to be legal, officers can refuse to take actions that would break the law.

He will have influence, oversight and decision-making powers, but he isn't directly in charge.

In France, the Rassemblement National (far right) have a 25yo at its head. Will be their candidate at the next general election. Never worked but started as a local councillor around the same age.

Do I think he is best placed to be at the head of the country? Nope. No experience if life in any shape or form.
Will be elected? That’s a possibility. And I’d assume people would have taken his lack if experience into account before voting.

Same applies here. People voted for him. They knew and thought it was ok 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
The only other way would be to change the law and have an age limit to become a councillor/MPs. Let’s note that some MPs have been very young too. Just out if Uni….. I dint remember them being that useless.

It gets better, apparently a degree in computer science leads you to be a people person, he's highly educated and clever and he states my ( very privileged) background gives me an understanding to do the job, having worked with social services for 10 years he wont last 6 months, because the public won't engage with him and will be putting in complaints about him so I wouldn't panic, let's see how he copes when an angry father squares up to him because his child has been removed,

As others have said, he’s a councillor and has been appointed as the cabinet member for children’s services, so won’t have any involvement in the day to day running of the department. Children’s Services will still be run by the Director and the senior officers in the department. I’ve worked in local government for over 50 years and have seen many changes from Labour to Conservative and vice versa over the years, and there has generally not been a significant impact on the way the day to day services are run.

I think values and intelligence count for more than an arbitrary age.

Look how how many dreadfully incompetent people have loads of experience! Recent example - Post Office scandal - all very experienced.

Of relevance to the discussion?
www.marfantrust.org/articles/charles-story

The professionals will be running the department. As they always do.

Well no. Decision making is so slow as it has to go through set processes, and various layers. The councilor with portfolio does not get to make all the decisions. They will present recommendations to scrutiny and full Council, but full Council will make the significant decisions.

Less than one year out of private school. Yes I sure he will in-depth knowledge of children's services.

It's all good, it's MN after all.

Personally I only vote for people who have some solid work history behind them. I think anyone under 30 is too young for a role like this.