This week, Sarah and Louise are joined by John Pearce OBE for a wide-ranging and deeply reflective conversation about the state of children’s social care and where it may be heading next.

John brings decades of experience at the forefront of children’s services leadership, including his time as Director of Children’s Services in Durham, and is widely known for his clear-sighted, often challenging analysis of system design, practice realities and reform.

Together, they explore a central tension running through children’s services today: a system built for a different era, now stretched by the realities of modern childhood. The conversation moves beyond surface-level reform to ask whether we are repeatedly redesigning the same structures rather than confronting the deeper questions about demand, sufficiency and purpose.

They discu ...