CYP Now - Bradford Council recruitment problems ‘key’ to children’s services failures

Slow progress to recruit more than 100 social workers at Bradford City Council was a “key” factor in the local authority's failure to improve its children's services, a report has found.

Star Hobson's death led to the appointment of a commissioner at Bradford City Council. Picture: West Yorkshire Police

Bradford’s government-appointment commissioner Steve Walker recommended that the council lose control of its children’s services due to not improving swiftly enough after being rated “inadequate” by Ofsted in 2018.

Walker was appointed as commissioner at the council following the death of 16-month-old Star Hobson who died after suffering a cardiac arrest in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on 22 September 2020.

In his 45-page report, published by the Department for Education last week, Walker notes that when he began writing his report there were 124 social worker vacancies filled by 173 agency staff.

This, combined with a 38 per cent increase in caseload since 2018, had affected the stability of the workforce, he said.

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