Birmingham's struggling children’s service department will not face any cuts to its £147 million annual budget council chiefs have announced.
Child protection service budgets will remain ring-fenced at a time when all other council services are facing drastic restructuring to accommodate major cuts.
But the council’s Labour leadership has said that forcing budget cuts on children’s social services while the department is in crisis,
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Child protection services in Birmigham have been rated as inadequate since 2009 and hit the headlines with a string of damning serious case reviews into the deaths of children known to social workers - including Khyra Ishaq and Keanu Williams.
Council cabinet member Stewart Stacey, who led a review of children’s services and education, said: “This is not the time to be reducing spending on safeguarding children. Piecemeal cuts to social care to meet budget targets would present an unacceptable risk to Birmingham’s children.”
Instead the council has launched a joint review of the service with partners like the health service, schools, police and other agencies to identify overlap and look for joint funding.
But the department is conscious that both the Department for Transport and Ofsted, which is due to inspect the service this month, have demanded stability in the organisation after repeated restructuring and regular changes in leadership.
Cabinet member for children’s services Brigid Jones (Lab, Selly Oak) said that they had now have a settled management team - whereas earlier this summer half were temps.
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She said: “The Department for Education has made it clear that we need stable leadership, structure and workforce. And we are doing that. And that is one of the reasons we had to stablise the budget.”
She added that now the department is focussed on recruitment to fill the high number of vacancies among experienced social workers - which would lead to reduced workloads and improved front line performance.
Current staff have an average of 29 open cases each and Coun Jones said she would like to see that reduced to the teens.