An expert has inspired leaders in Bury to boost its children's services after a damning inspection as the council looks at plans to cut jobs as part of its plans to transform the department.

Josh MacAlister is a former teacher who founded the social work charity Frontline in 2013 and wrote a highly influential report about children’s services across the UK.

On Tuesday morning, he delivered a speech at The New Kershaw Centre on Deal Street in Bury and made reference to how the council has had a tough time with its children’s services department.

Education regulator Ofsted rated the department "inadequate" last December and a report published last month found that heavy caseloads and high case worker turnover continue to drive "inconsistency".

A report published ahead of the council's cabinet meeting on Wednesday night shows that the local authority is set to cut a dozen jobs as part of a consultation that will "impact 72 individuals" to save close to £1m.

The report states: "The overall change is a reduction of 12.72 FTE (full time equivalent) posts and an indicative cost reduction of £964,000.

"However, there will also be an associated loss of trading income totalling £507,000, a reduction in grant contribution (DSG) of £89,000 and the impact of the currently unfunded element of the CLAS (Bury Curriculum and Language Access Service) totalling £1,089m."

The report added: "The proposal sets out a plan of transformation of children’s services, necessary to both integrate and align services to improve the delivery of our statutory education responsibilities across education and SEND (special educational needs and disabilities)."

In his speech, Mr MacAlister talked about his review and some of the points that he would like to see implemented in Bury and across the country.

He said: “The review helped to look at the whole picture of children’s care from targeted health to leaving care and ask how we can guarantee that children grow up with a right to a family life and have safety, stability and love.

“I’d like to see all our children’s social care workforce and the whole family help system based out of buildings like this across England rather than in council offices really far away from the public.

“We then need a more expert-led child protection response which means only the most experienced practitioners who have got calm steady confidence and the knowledge and skill acquired through time are able to make difficult decisions about the likelihood of significant harm in some family cases.”

Mr MacAlister also wants every young person who is in care and then leaves care to have at least two people who love them on their 18th birthday.

Back in July, cabinet member for children and young people at the council, Cllr Lucy Smith, said it may be 10 to 12 years before the local authority's children’s services are judged to be "good" by Ofsted.

She said: “In Bury we know we’re on this journey and we know we want to improve and we’re not trying to improve children’s services to pass Ofsted.

“We actually want better outcomes for our young people and that’s what we’re really dedicated to do.

“I will be taking away the promise of the right to have two people who love you when you are 18 and I know when Ofsted come, they’re not going to monitor that but maybe they should.”

Executive director for children and young people in Bury, Jeanette Richards, said that Mr MacAlister has shone a light on every corner of children’s services in Bury and how it can improve.

She said: “He has presented us with a once in a lifetime opportunity to radicalise and rethink how we deliver services to children and families in Bury.

“This has been driven by Cllr Smith and her aspirations for children and families and inviting Josh into Bury.

“The aspiration and plan have been co created by experts by experience who told the council what’s important to them and they said that children and young people in Bury reach their potential and are happy, safe and are therefore able to make the best use of their skills to lead independent and successful lives.

“We need to make sure we are consistently improving outcomes and that our children re-achieving their full potential here in Bury.”

Ms Richards stressed that positive relationships are at the heart of everything the department does and certain areas in Bury that have a greater level of need like Bury East will be targeted.

She added: “We will support people to remain in the care of their parents wherever it is safe to do so.

“Our model of intervention is about resetting and recalibrating our services so we’re intervening at the earliest opportunity in the least intrusive way but when we reach a point where children can’t remain in the care of their parents that we are fully exploring family networks and engaging in a different ways.

“Investment from the council has enabled us to consider a more robust fostering service that will enable us to grow our own fostering capacity.”

Young people who had been in the care system were also present at the event and discussed their experiences and what they would like to see change in the future.

One boy said: “An important aspect of learning that people often forget is understanding yourself and this is something people don’t get a lot of time to do.

“With the curriculum at the minute there’s a lot of focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), this often means courses like design and technology and music have been getting cut after cut after cut.

“This is because there is consistently a movement towards English and maths and moving into adulthood a lot of people haven’t had the time to understand themselves like coping mechanisms.

“A lot of people going into care are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It needs to be considered.”

He added: “Helping people on a more individual basis would help to see where people’s talents lie and we can help them get into the best possible place they can be.

“I’m incredibly lucky as a care leaver as I’m currently studying at university, and I wouldn’t be there if I didn’t have the support from people such as social workers and groups.

“But there’s a deeply concerning number of people who won’t have that opportunity as in a lot of cases education isn’t the first thing on people’s agenda for good reason, as they often have more pressing matters to deal with.”

A girl who was present said the most important thing for her was keeping herself distracted by her friends as she did not have her family to rely on.

She said: “It was more about to access going out with my friends and seeing them. They were my main network.

“The things that need to change are mental health services.

“With the kids, most kids in care already have childhood trauma. There’s not enough priority to kids in care for mental health services and getting the help they need.”