Ex-health watchdog boss to run Bradford children's services trust

The organisation set up to run Bradford's children's services will be headed by the former boss of the Care Quality Commission.

Eileen Milner will run the new Bradford Children's Company trust.

Bradford Council was stripped of control earlier this year following the murder of toddler Star Hobson.

The announcement followed a review that concluded the council "lacked the capacity and capability to improve services at pace on its own."

The Local Democracy Reporting Service told how council leader Susan Hinchcliffe said in an email to staff: "I'm delighted that our work with the Department for Education brought forward an outstanding candidate like Eileen to lead our children's company.

"This new company will use all the talents we have nationally and locally to manage children's services in the district through its next phase of improvement."

Until October Ms Milner was chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency and had previously been executive director at the Care Quality Commission, which regulates of health and adult social care in England.

She announced that she is standing down from her current role with the Combined Authority for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and was recently appointed as Chair of Council at the University of Bradford.

Bradford Council's children's services were declared inadequate following an Ofsted inspection in 2018 and a commissioner was appointed a year after 16-month-old Star was killed in September 2020.

The trust's creation follows recommendations by the commissioner to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi.

Star bled to death after suffering "catastrophic" injuries at the hands of Savannah Brockhill, 28, her mother's "violent-tempered" girlfriend, at the couple's home in Keighley.

Brockhill was jailed for a minimum of 25 years for her murder and Star's mother, Frankie Smith, 20, was sentenced to eight years for causing or allowing her death.

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or send video here.