IT will take at least a year to bring Birmingham’s failing children’s social services up to scratch, the woman hired to rescue the under-performing unit has admitted.

Eleanor Brazil warned that standards might even deteriorate further before things got better, adding that the pace of change required at the city council department was bound to create short-term uncertainty and instability among staff.

She was speaking following a difficult start to the new year for Birmingham social services, which saw children’s social care director Colin Tucker suspended from his £120,000 post over claims that he had failed to push through reforms quickly enough.

And the department – where child protection services were slammed as inadequate by Ofsted – was further rocked by the death of two-year-old city tot Keanu Williams from suspected “non-accidental injuries” and the arrest of an assistant at the city’s Little Stars nursery, who has been charged with raping a child.

Ms Brazil ordered an urgent inquiry after it emerged Keanu was known to social workers who had visited him shortly before he died.

She told a scrutiny committee she was still concerned about “poor practice” among some of the city’s 700 social workers.