Birmingham City Council social work managers 'inadequate'

Birmingham City Council has tweeted a map showing the colour of the political picture across the city, after Labour retained control of the city council.

Read: Birmingham City Council stays in Labour control

Birmingham City Council says it expected the 'inadequate' rating it received from Ofsted over how its children's services operate.

Social work managers took 147 vulnerable children off their books when they should not have done - to reduce workloads on a shrunken staff.

Councillor Brigid Jones, Birmingham City Council's cabinet member for children and family services, says:

"We must never forget that the welfare of children is at the heart of everything we do and here in Birmingham we have a group of people who are absolutely committed to ensuring we do our best for all our children and young people.

When we talk about change and improvement it is important that we always remember this.

We have been very open about the state of children’s services in Birmingham and this inadequate rating is what we expected.

The report’s details build on the issues we had recognised ourselves as inadequate practice and which we shared with Ofsted on their arrival.

This is welcome but we will not let the focus on current performance distract us from the tailor-made approach to improvement put in place by the Department for Education; an approach set out by the DfE during this latest Ofsted inspection."