He told delegates that his authority, which was served with an improvement notice last year, has a "bad and depressing" track record of supporting social workers.
"I don't think social workers have been well understood," he said. "We haven't been clear about their role, we haven't supported them as well as we could and other agencies have been able to get away with their practice not being up to standard through the fact that my staff have performed a residual function and been blamed for just about everything to do with child deaths."
Tucker said his team is on a "journey of improvement", but warned that they face a "phenomenal task", in a city with 2,000 looked-after children, 1,300 children with child protection plans and more than 2,000 assessments every month.
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