Birmingham children’s services department is to be taken out of council control, two years after an inspection found “widespread and serious failures” that left children and young people at risk of harm.
The department, which has been rated inadequate since 2008, is to be taken into a voluntary trust, which the council said would put social workers “at its centre”.
In May 2014 Ofsted inspectors found that over a three-month period, the cases of 145 children were closed due to a lack of social workers.
Failings by social workers and other child protection staff were also highlighted in a series of serious case reviews into the death of children, including Birmingham toddler Keanu Williams, a two-year-old boy who was beaten to death by his mother after months of horrific cruelty, and seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, who was starved by her mother.
In a statement on Tuesday the council said: “As part of Birmingham city council’s improvement journey it is the intention to move to a new model of children’s services – a voluntary trust.
“We are now at the start of the third year of our agreed improvement journey plan and it is acknowledged by our children’s services commissioner that expected progress has been made. Key to this has been putting families at the centre of social work. It is now the time to consider a model that has social workers at its centre.”
The move was welcomed by the Department for Education, which said that while Birmingham had improved, “this progress has not gone far enough, fast enough”.
A spokesman said: “The prime minister was clear that we cannot tolerate failure in children’s services. That is why we are looking at the best next steps, including moving towards a voluntary trust.”
The details of exactly how the voluntary trust will operate have not yet been decided. Birmingham city council’s cabinet has yet to formally approve the idea of transferring children’s services.
