Birmingham Children’s Trust launched!

Published: 1st Apr 2018

History has been made this month when Birmingham City Council placed the delivery of children’s social care services in an independent trust.

Birmingham Children's Trust, under the leadership of Andy Couldrick as Chief Executive and Andrew Christie as Chair of the Board was launched on 1 April 2018.

The decision to move to a Trust arrangement was made by the council following a period of service inadequacy, followed by more recent improvements.  The change has been made to continue this improvement and allow greater flexibility, innovation, support and challenge. The Trust will be a wholly - owned company of the council and will continue to work closely with the local authority to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children and young people in the city. 

Andy Couldrick, Chief Executive of Birmingham Children’s Trust, said,

“I am delighted that following months of hard work the Children’s Trust has finally launched.  This is a fantastic opportunity for us all to build on the positive changes that we are already seeing in children’s services in Birmingham, whilst giving us operational independence, and a new organisation with a single focus on improving outcomes for children and young people”.

Andrew Christie, Chair of the Birmingham Children’s Trust, said,

“Now that Birmingham Children’s Trust has launched we finally have all the ingredients to accelerate improvement in the city.  We have worked hard over the past year to appoint our Chief Executive, non-Executive Directors and senior management team, agree our budget, and make sure everything is place to make the Trust a real success.  We have been talking to staff, young people, council colleagues, Council Members and partners in the city about how we can all be part of this positive change as the Trust develops, and make a real difference to the life chances of the city's vulnerable children”.