Education chief named Labour council deputy
BIRMINGHAM’S education and children’s services chief has been elected as the council’s new deputy leader.
Councillor Brigid Jones, who has been cabinet member for children, young people and families since 2012, beat three rivals for the £40,000-a-year job in a private vote of Labour colleagues.
The official result has not been released, but rumours suggest that Cllr Jones won by 47 votes to 25 for former cabinet member for transport Tahir Ali in the final round of voting.
Her cabinet colleagues Paulette Hamilton, in charge of adult social care, and Lisa Trickett, who has been at the centre of the ongoing bins dispute, finished third and fourth respectively.
The deputy leader role became vacant last month following the election of Cllr Ian Ward as leader.
Cllr Jones was first elected in 2011, representing Selly Oak. There were raised eyebrows among colleagues when she was appointed to Sir Albert Bore’s Labour cabinet just a year later taking over the persistently troubled children’s services department.
Cllr Jones retained her cabinet job throughout the rocky period of the Kerslake review and changes of leadership.
She endured a torrid time, at first inheriting a children’s social care service rated as inadequate and rumours of conflict with senior officials.
It was not long before the education department was also plunged into the centre of the Trojan Horse in schools scandal.
More recently, with the help of government troubleshooters, she has been overseeing a three year improvement plan and Ofsted says the department has begun to show signs of progress.
The social care department is also being outsourced to a trust in April.
As deputy leader, Cllr Jones’s prime responsibility in a wide ranging brief will be to restore budget discipline after last year’s massive overspend
The promotion of Cllr Jones leaves a cabinet vacancy in this crucial education and children’s services department.
That role will be appointed by Cllr Ward and already a couple of names are being floated – the city’s homelessness champion and former housing officer Sharon Thompson (Soho) and veteran councillor and Deputy Lord Mayor Carl Rice (Ladywood) are both close allies of the leader and thought to be in the frame.
Opposition Conservative group leader Robert Alden accused the Labour group of being more concerned about getting re-elected next May rather than sorting out the problems facing the city.
“Residents deserve a leader and deputy leader of the council who are focused on making residents lives better not on simply trying to keep Labour in power,” he said.
“With focus like that no wonder Labour lost control of the budget and the bin service again this year.”
Cllr Ward and Cllr Jones have been elected as leader and deputy leader of the Birmingham Labour Group and will be officially endorsed as council leader and deputy at the council’s monthly meeting on November 7.