The authority was issued with an improvement notice in March 2010 following a critical Ofsted report into safeguarding and looked-after children’s services in November 2009.
In its most recent inspection in February this year, the council was found to have made “satisfactory progress” and its Ofsted rating for safeguarding services increased to “adequate”.
But following the departure of director of children’s services Barbara Peacock, who has taken up a post in Medway after 23 months at Sandwell, the council has decided to seek external support to speed up the department's improvements.
Sandwell Council chief executive Jan Britton, said: “Sandwell’s children’s social care service has had a rough time for a long time. We have had three separate periods of intervention by government in the past 12 years and in the same period we have had a high turnover of directors of children’s services.
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