Birmingham City Council’s chief executive has sought to reassure a local MP who branded the authority ‘totally heartless’, after a local girl starved to death.
Stephen Hughes pledged he would keep Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, informed on the investigation into the death of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, who is believed to have starved at her home in Handsworth.
Following an emergency meeting of Birmingham’s independent Safeguarding Children Board on 23 May, the authority said each unit within its children’s services department would start a management review, which would run concurrently with a police investigation into the case. Other bodies providing children’s services will also undertake reviews.
Birmingham’s response followed a scathing attack from Mr Mahmood, who accused the council of taking a ‘head in the sand’ approach to the death. He scolded senior officials for their initial silence over the case and said they needed to do more to reassure the local community.
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