Northamptonshire County Council leader 'stands firm' in job

A council leader who faced calls to resign over failings that led to the murders of two young children has said he will "stand firm" in his post.

Reviews found Northamptonshire County Council missed chances to protect the two-year-old boy and one-year-old girl.

Labour councillors and MP Philip Hollobone called for Matt Golby, who was in charge of children's services at the time of the deaths, to step down.

Mr Golby said he "needed to provide stability" to the authority.

Dylan Tiffin-Brown, two, was murdered in 2018 by his father Raphael Kennedy.

One-year-old Evelyn-Rose Muggleton was killed by Ryan Coleman, the partner of Evelyn-Rose's mother in 2017. Both men were both jailed for life.

Serious case reviews found that Dylan was deemed by carers as "unlikely to suffer harm", while concerns about the welfare of Evelyn-Rose were also dismissed.

Last week Mr Golby survived a motion brought by the council's Labour opposition calling for him to resign.

Conservative MP for Kettering Mr Hollobone said "the buck must stop" with Mr Golby and Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour's Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, had already called on Mr Golby to resign.

Conservative Mr Golby said he was "firmly fixed and committed" and he "wanted to be a part of the solution" to the authority's issues.

He added: "I've got the full backing and endorsement of [the Conservative] group and I've made that commitment that I want to see the transformation of services."

The county council, along with the district and borough councils in Northamptonshire will be dissolved in 2021 and two new unitary authorities will take over, after the authority overspent its budget by millions of pounds.

But Mr Golby said it now had a "complete grip on the financial situation".