Birmingham DCS-to-be quits before she starts
Neil Puffett
Friday, October 17, 2014
Birmingham's recently appointed director of children's services has withdrawn from the position just two weeks before she was due to start at the troubled authority, it has been announced.
Bernadette McNally, previously executive director of social services at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, had been due to take up the role in November having been appointed in August.
A spokesman for Birmingham Council said that during an introductory period this month, which was arranged in preparation for her starting the role, McNally decided that she was no longer interested in the position.
He said the decision not to proceed with the appointment was “by mutual agreement”.
“This news is disappointing as we thought we had secured an excellent candidate from the first-class group of people who applied for the post,” the spokesman said.
“Our priority however is to ensure that children are made safe through what we are doing and this is a big collective challenge.
“It’s important to remind ourselves that our most serious staffing challenge is to get the right number of social workers doing great social work with the best team management around them.”
McNally was set to take on the task of turning around Birmingham's struggling children's social care services, reporting directly to director of people Peter Hay, who holds statutory responsibility for children's and adults' services.
The authority has said the existing interim leadership structure will continue to be in place until a permanent appointment is made.
The interim team is to be bolstered by the appointment of Eleni Ioannides, former DCS at Bury, Knowsley and Warrington, who will start on a temporary basis from 28 October.
Children’s services at Birmingham Council have been rated as “inadequate” by regulator Ofsted since 2009.
The Department for Education has previously warned the council that children’s services could be taken out of the authority’s control unless improvements are made.
Since then, an independent review of the department led by professor Julian Le Grand published in March also raised serious concerns about the standard of services.
His findings prompted the government to appoint Lord Norman Warner as independent children’s commissioner for Birmingham and commission another review by Le Grand, the findings of which were due to be presented to government last month, on the best way of improving children’s services.
