Stoke-on-Trent City Council has approved plans to invest £5.5m into its children’s services following an ‘inadequate’ rating from Ofsted earlier this year.
The funding – which has been found in part by cutting of 136 jobs and the deletion of 64 vacant posts – will create over 130 new posts in children’s services.
Cllr Abi Brown, the council’s leader and cabinet member for corporate resources, strategy and partnerships said: ‘We have had to make some difficult decisions to find this investment, and have adapted our proposals in response to the comments we have received, ensuring we can make this commitment to the young people of our city. There are currently 892 children in care who look to us for support and we have to do what is right for them both now and for the future.
‘We continue to focus on achieving improvement in our children’s services both through the recruitment of more social workers, but also in ensuring that every penny is well spent within the service.’
