Unveiling the strategy today, the council said it had considered five options for the future of the troubled service.
These included breaking up the service to cover different parts of Birmingham; outsourcing children’s services entirely; establishing a trust accountable to the Department for Education; or establishing a trust accountable to Birmingham Council.
It has opted for a strategy of “integrated transformation”, which will involve working more closely with other agencies involved with children such as schools.
Meanwhile, an additional £10m will be pumped into the service.
The cash will be used to recruit and retain experienced social workers, through initiatives such as benchmarking pay rates across neighbouring authorities, and 'golden hello' payments.
Brigid Jones, lead member for children and family services at the authority, said: “We have looked seriously at all possible options, weighing how each option will address the issues we face; doing nothing is not an option.
“It is clear that we cannot go on as we are, with years of initiatives and restructures resulting in little real change.
“We have made significant progress in the last six months but this has to be sustainable and it must involve our partners. We cannot do this alone.
“To that end, this strategy acknowledges but draws a line under what has gone before and sets out clearly and unambiguously that the future lies in an integrated system for joint commissioning and delivery of children’s services.
“We have the capacity and ability to succeed but we do need to have the right support in place, and that will come from a network of partners from the public, private and voluntary sectors.
“Although this strategy is about all of children’s services, social care remains the focus of our immediate improvement plans and we must get the basics right.
“And with the appointment of Peter Hay I believe we have the right person to drive through this transformation with the support and confidence of staff and partners.”
News of Birmingham’s improvement plan comes just two weeks after the government ordered a review to decide how children’s services should be run at the council.
The review will look at the council’s plans for change, whether they are sufficient and what alternatives may be appropriate and is being held instead of an inspection of progress at the authority, which had been due to be conducted this month by Ofsted.
Birmingham’s children’s services department has been rated inadequate since 2009, and has been in the spotlight over child protection scandals including the case of two-year-old Keanu Williams, who was beaten to death by his mother in 2011, and seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, who starved to death in 2008.
