Bradford City Council loses control of children’s services

The council’s children’s services department, which was rated “inadequate” by Ofsted in 2018, will be run independently by a council-owned trust, the Department for Education has announced.

The move is based on recommendations made to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi by commissioner Steve Walker, director of Leeds’ strengthening families, protecting children improvement programme, who was appointed last September to conduct a thorough three-month review of Bradford’s children’s social care services.

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In his report, Walker states that improvement at the council following the 2018 Ofsted inspection has been “too slow”.

He notes the lack of a permanent senior leadership team at the council after director of children’s services Mark Douglas resigned in October 2021 and the council’s deputy director for children’s social care left in November 2021.

Walker also points out that during his three-months at Bradford, the council had 124 social work vacancies. These were being covered by 173 agency social workers.

“There are two key factors that have impacted on improvement: workforce stability and relationships between children’s services and the corporate centre,” he said.

“It is my assessment that it will take a period of eighteen months to two years to bring about the level of changes necessary. At this time, I do not think that the Council will be able to achieve this alone. For this reason, I am suggesting that control of children’s services be removed from the council for a period and an alternative delivery model is developed,” Walker added.

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

Her mother's partner Savannah Brockhill, 28, was jailed for life over her murder and her mother Frankie Smith was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child and sentenced to twelve years in prison.

During a trial into the toddler’s death, the court heard that Bradford’s children’s services had been contacted by five members of Star’s family amid concerns for her safety before her murder.

The independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel is set to consolidate the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review for Star into its national review of the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes to identify local and national improvements needed by safeguarding agencies, according to DfE.

The panel is set to publish the outcome of its review in May.

The trust model due to be set-up in Bradford is similar to one recently used in Sunderland which boosted its Ofsted rating from inadequate to outstanding in three years.

While the new trust is established, an independent non-executive commissioner will also be appointed to lead the council through its transition period.

Zahawi said: “This is an important moment for children and families in Bradford, and for social workers and other professionals who want to create meaningful and effective relationships with them. 

“These professionals take highly complex decisions each day to protect children, and I am grateful for the effort that goes into each one.”

Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of Bradford Council, said the council is committed to improving its children’s services through the creation of the trust.

“Inevitably this will take time and we’re acutely conscious that there can be no pause in our improvement journey. We’ve asked the government to collaborate with us to create a commissioner-led improvement board. This will enable us to focus on delivering consistently high quality care to the children of our district,” she said.