CHILDREN’S services provided by Durham County Council have been told they must improve following concerns reorganisation has impacted on frontline services.

An Ofsted report found they required improvement – slipping from their last 'outstanding' inspection in 2011.

Five years later and inspectors say the department must do more to help children at risk of neglect.

Ossie Johnson, cabinet member for children and young people’s service at Durham County Council, said the department would waste no time in responding to the recommendations.

The report, published this week, found the reorganisation of the service in June 2014 has had some positive impact on early help support but other frontline services have not had sufficient attention.

The inspection, carried out between February 22 and March 18, found staff shortages meant social workers were unable to take on new cases.

It also highlighted cases where some children had too many changes of social worker, meaning they were unable to establish enduring relationships.

The report notes steps had been taken to improve staff vacancies and turnover but that action had yet to have a positive impact

Criticisms were also made of the level of scrutiny on the department by senior managers and the council's elected members, saying reports were not sufficiently analytical and did not help in scrutinising front line services.

Inspectors did praise a number of areas, including the adoption service, early help offer and services to tackle alcohol and drug misuse, domestic abuse and mental health.

Arrangements for children and young people who go missing and those at risk of child sexual exploitation were also described as good.

Cllr Johnson said: “We accept Ofsted’s feedback and are absolutely committed to making the improvements recommended so that we can deliver the best possible outcomes for every child in County Durham. Based on the feedback during the inspection - a great deal of work is already underway to bring these areas up to a consistently ‘good’ standard.

“Our focus on improvement is clear from our innovations programme which is already beginning to deliver results and from our new senior management structure which has been planned since the start of the year, well ahead of this inspection process. It’s important, however, to note that Ofsted praised a number of key areas of our services.

The service has been given 14 recommendations to improve services including ensuring that social work teams have manageable workloads, reviewing existing recording systems and improving the quality of social work assessments.

The news comes less than a year after Ofsted published two highly critical reports into children’s services at other North-East councils. Last summer, children’s services at both Sunderland City Council and Darlington Borough Council were rated “inadequate” by the standards watchdog.