A GOVERNMENT commissioner will be appointed to help turn around Bradford Council’s beleaguered Children’s Services department after concerns were raised at the slow pace of improvement. They are likely to be appointed in September - almost three years after the District’s Children’s Services were rated “inadequate” by Ofsted. Since then an improvement plan has been put in place, but return inspections by Ofsted have found that while some improvements have been made, the pace has been painfully slow, with one MP describing it as “shameful.” Recent updates have found that the department is over reliant on agency staff, and has a high turnover of social workers.
And one Councillor called for Council bosses to hold an urgent review of the facility s costs. The eye watering rent costs that the Council pays for the City Park library emerged last year during a debate on a planned shake up of the library service. The city centre library moved into the unit, overlooking the mirror pool, in 2013. It was previously based in what is now Margaret Macmillan Tower, but that building was condemned as a fire risk in 2011 and was dealt a further blow in 2013 when asbestos was found throughout the building. The old library has since been refurbished and is home to the Council s Children s Services department.