Birmingham city council is “a rotten borough . . . beyond redemption” whose powers to run schools and social services should be overhauled because children are at risk, according to the chief inspector of schools.
In his final interview before stepping down, Sir Michael Wilshaw said the “appalling children’s services” and “awful schools” in Britain’s second largest city had been his greatest cause of concern during his five years in office.
He warned that a repeat of the so-called Trojan Horse scandal, which saw a radical Islamic ethos introduced to schools in the city, was likely unless the government acted.
Children’s services in Birmingham have been rated as “inadequate” by Ofsted since 2008 and a report last month identified “serious and widespread failings”.
“Birmingham is the equivalent of the 19th-century rotten borough . . . If the government does not act in Birmingham in terms of corporate governance, I am concerned we will see a return to Trojan Horse issues at some stage,” Wilshaw said.
“It is up to a commission of inquiry to reform Birmingham. It is not acceptable that our second city should be second division in terms of education and children’s services.”
Wilshaw said Birmingham had the most worrying cases of segregation of the type identified in a recent report by Dame Louise Casey, the government’s social cohesion tsar. Nine of 21 schools in the east of the city where all the pupils are from ethnic minorities had been rated “less than good” in their latest Ofsted inspections. The average nationally is 11%.
“These schools need to be good if they are going to counter radicalisation and promote British values,” said Wilshaw, who was told in a phonecall with a number of Birmingham head teachers last week that “without Ofsted’s presence, things could fall apart and Trojan Horse issues could return”.
Wilshaw accepts that his comments will make him unpopular with some.
“I am persona non grata in Birmingham. They are not going to erect a statue to me as they did to [the Liberal politician] Joseph Chamberlain, but I think this is the most pressing thing I am leaving to [my successor] Amanda Spielman.”
Councillor Brigid Jones, Birmingham’s cabinet member for children, families and schools, said: “We do not recognise this caricature of Birmingham . . . Not only have Sir Michael’s own Ofsted inspectors confirmed our progress in protecting vulnerable children in a report published just two weeks ago, the Department for Education has confirmed that we no longer need an education commissioner, such is the good work we are doing.”
According to Ofsted, there are 432 schools in England where all pupils are white British and 97 where all are from ethnic minorities. Wilshaw said it was important that such schools were closely monitored.
“Though we might not be as concerned about radicalisation [in white-only schools], we are worried about alienation and the rise of the far right . . . Inspectors have not said to me, ‘We are really worried about BNP literature being spread in a school’, but what they do say is, ‘We went to a school in Hastings or Great Yarmouth, for example, and saw terrible standards’,” he said.