Manchester's children’s services boss has quit following Ofsted’s damning report into the city’s safeguarding services, the M.E.N. can reveal.

Mike Livingstone is standing down after eight years in post - and will be temporarily replaced by Gladys Rhodes White, the troubleshooter drafted in to help Rochdale council after its grooming scandal.

He is understood to have been under pressure from councillors to resign his post.

Ofsted had branded Manchester’s child protection unit ‘inadequate’ last month and warned children were potentially being put at risk.

Some staff were told of his departure today. One told the M.E.N: “You don’t get a report like that where you have been in charge for several years - and you are under pressure from councillors - without there being fallout.”

Mr Livingstone said: “My time as Manchester’s director of children’s services has been one of both challenge and reward.

“Through a period of significant spending reductions imposed on local authorities we have protected services which safeguard the city’s most vulnerable children and reformed how these services are delivered.

“Our new approaches to early years and to helping troubled families are just two initiatives which I’m proud of.

“Also the creation of the Manchester Youth Council, and the enormous progress that has been made during this time on closing the gap between achievements in our schools and schools nationally.

“Despite this progress however it’s clear from the recent Ofsted judgement, together with the ongoing budget challenges, we face that changes are now called for.

“There is still much more to be done in the city and I think this calls for a fresh pair of eyes to take the helm of children’s services and see this work through.

“The time is now right for this and I have therefore decided to step down from my role and take a short career break before pursuing other avenues.

“I’d like to express my thanks to all those people who I’ve worked with and who have supported me during my time with the council, and I wish them every success in the future.”

Ms Rhodes White takes over as interim strategic director of children’s services from the end of the month.

'Pressure rising' on on social workers

Fears have been raised over rising pressure on Manchester social workers after Ofsted slammed the city’s safeguarding services.

Members of a town hall panel have warned frontline staff must not end up bearing the strain of the resulting rush to improve.

One warned many in the profession already ended up ‘shattered or drinking the pain away’.

The concerns were raised after Ofsted downgraded the city’s child protection service to inadequate in September - highlighting 44 children who had been waiting six months or more to be assessed. That put kids potentially at risk, it said.

In their latest update to the children’s scrutiny committee panel, senior officers said much was being done to address the problem.

But there had been no drop in the number of cases flooding into the system, they admitted. The most recent figures made public showed social workers handling an average 34 cases each.

Karen Dolton, head of care, said referrals had not dropped since then and remained ‘far higher than we would like’. At the same time, social workers are now closely monitored to make sure children were being seen on time, she said.

Yet hiring more frontline staff was not the answer, because they would simply ‘soak up’ cases and allow more into the system.

Committee chair Julie Reid said the comments had ‘raised eyebrows’, adding: “I’m concerned about the pressure, the caseloads of social workers and retaining social workers.”

She added: “Saying ‘getting more social workers will bring more children into the system’ - that doesn’t wash with me at all.”

Coun Daniel Gillard, himself a former social services employee, said Manchester - and the whole country - needed to radically change its approach in the long term.

“Social services has been in crisis since longer than I have been alive,” he said. “Social workers are all either shattered or drinking the pain away.”

Mike Livingstone, who has now resigned as director of children’s services in the wake of the report, said social workers ‘do a very good job in difficult circumstances’, adding: “We need to change the conditions in which they work.

“We are doing all we can not to blame our social workers and to support them and to safely and sustainably reduce their caseloads.”