Gibbons, currently director of local delivery at Essex County Council, will join the troubled department, which has been rated as “inadequate” by Ofsted since 2009, in February 2015.
He replaces Bernadette McNally, previously executive director of social services at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, who withdrew from the position earlier this month just two weeks before she was due to start.
Since joining Essex County Council in January 2012, Gibbons has helped turn around the authority’s child social care department, which recently achieved an Ofsted rating of “good” after previously being rated as “inadequate”.
Prior to this, he spent six years as assistant director for children’s social care at Milton Keynes Council.
Commenting on his appointment, Gibbons said: “This will be a challenge and an opportunity to build more effective social work services that will meet the needs of children and support their families.
“I am very much looking forward to that challenge and opportunity, working with and building on the progress social work staff have made over the past year.”
An interim team led by Eleni Ioannides, former DCS at Bury, Knowsley and Warrington, will manage the department until Gibbons joins the department next year.
