Herefordshire Council will be able to retain control over its troubled children's services department for now but it will have to demonstrate that it can make improvements, commissioner concludes.

Last year Ofsted rated the council’s services as inadequate, concluding that children were ‘not protected from harm’. The watchdog said the service had ‘significantly deteriorated’ since it was last rated as requiring improvement in 2018.

The Department for Education subsequently appointed Eleanor Brazil as Children’s Commissioner to oversee services.

In her report published today, Ms Brazil identified ‘some very recent signs of limited improvement’ but said that ‘the lack of a sufficiently rigorous and systematic approach has meant that any improvements have been slow’.

She said she had explored bringing in ‘additional expertise’ and believed a formal partnership with another local authority would help bring about the necessary changes.

‘I believe this to be the best immediate option, and consider that the authority should be given a period of six months to demonstrate that it can effect real change with these arrangements in place,’ the commissioner concluded.

The council’s chief executive Paul Walker said: ‘Improving Herefordshire Children’s Services remains this council’s number one priority. There are areas of progress identified by the Commissioner on which we can build, but we accept the pace of change has not been fast enough.

‘We now have in place a detailed three-year improvement plan, which the Commissioner recognises as a strong platform for progress over the coming months, significant additional investment, a strengthened leadership team, a targeted recruitment and retention campaign and the structure for an independent commission to give families a voice and help us all move forward from the mistakes of the past.

‘As the Commissioner makes clear in her report, many of the issues facing Herefordshire Children’s Services are long-standing and complex. But we are determined that we will bring about the changes necessary in the timescales set out so that we build a better service fit for the future.’

Darryl Freeman, director of Children’s Services, said: ‘This is a difficult report for everybody working in the children’s service and I want to say sorry to all the children and families who have not received the support that they deserved.

‘I want to thank the Commissioner for her work and the manner in which she has approached her task. All of us share her vision for the service we want to create and are wholeheartedly committed to meeting the targets she has set within the timescales laid out.’