'Inadequate' Rating For Sandwell Council

9 April 2013, 19:13 | Updated: 9 April 2013, 19:23

Heart's been told that a senior manager at Sandwell council has resigned after child protection services were found to be 'inadequate' by Ofsted in their latest report.

Director of Children's Services Helen Smith has resigned today (9th April) after an Ofsted inspection between the 25th of February and the 6th of March 2013 found insufficient support was given to families of vulnerable children.

Council leader Darren Cooper apologised saying: 'I'm devastated really because we knew what the issues were, we'd begun to address them, I just wish Ofsted would have come 6 months later as we would have been in a different position'

'I don't want to make excuses, it's not a good situation to be in and I want to apologise to the people of Sandwell that we've let them down.'

The council say they've already taken on more social workers and teaming up with private firm iMPOWER to improve their services.

The company is working alongside service users, frontline staff and senior managers to help improve their Ofsted rating for children's safeguarding. The contract was largely paid for by savings in top management posts at the council.

To see the full report click here: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/local-authorities/sandwell