The director of Sefton Council’s troubled children’s services department has resigned just over a year after he was appointed to the role.
Martin Birch was appointed in January 2022 following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted inspection of the service and the resignation of the previous director.
Mr Birch has headed up the council’s efforts for the past year to turn the service around after Sefton Council was slated for putting the borough’s most vulnerable children at risk following a series of failings.
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The inspection led to the service being placed into special measures and the appointment of a commissioner to oversee improvements being made by the local authority.
Mr Birch, who is from Merseyside, made the move in 2022 from Sunderland Council, where he had headed up its children’s services department.
According to a statement released by Sefton Council today, Mr Birch’s departure was “not at the council’s request” but was due to “personal reasons” with the director set to take up a new role closer to home at Cumberland Council.
In the statement, a Sefton Council spokesperson said that Mr Birch had “tendered his resignation” and is expected to leave in April.
The spokesperson continued: “Martin’s resignation was not at the council’s request but was for personal reasons. Martin has accepted an offer to become the DCS for Cumberland, closer to home, with less travel involved.
“Martin joined Sefton in April 2022, just after the Ofsted inspection which rated Sefton’s Children’s Services as Inadequate.
“Since then, a great deal of hard work has gone in to putting into place an improvement plan, enhancing leadership capacity, mitigating the local impact of the national social worker recruitment crisis by creating the first Social Work academy in Merseyside and increasing the resourcing of Children’s Services.”
Chief executive Dwayne Johnson, who has also recently announced his plans to leave Sefton Council and who was previously director of children’s services before his promotion in 2019, spoke of the “dedication” of Mr Birch since taking up the appointment.
Mr Johnson said: “I would like to thank Martin for the work he has done since he joined the council last year and wish him the best of luck in his new role.
“Martin has led Children’s Services during an unprecedented and challenging time, but thanks to Martin and his dedicated staff, and the Council’s significant financial investment into Children’s Services, improvements continue to be made at pace.”
The current assistant director of health and protection, Risthardh Hare, has been appointed as interim director of children’s services while a recruitment process to replace Mr Birch gets underway.
Mr Johnson said: “We have every confidence that Risthardh’s experience in other leadership roles will maintain a relentless focus on practice whilst serving as our Interim DCS.”
He added that the commissioner for children’s services, Paul Boyce, had also been informed of Martin’s resignation.
Last week at a testy meeting of the borough’s overview and scrutiny committee, Mr Boyce warned councillors were “chasing a red herring while the world burns around you” after a row over minutes of an improvement board.
He added that he felt there was a “lack of trust between members and officers” evident as a result of the controversy and warned the services would not improve unless all at the council worked together to implement changes.
The council’s employment procedure committee is now set to meet to determine a timeline and agree the approach to finding a new director to take over the services.
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