Rutland education chiefs have been told to produce an 'action plan' for inspectors after they judged the County Council's Children's Services as 'requiring improvement.'

However, Ofsted reported the children were being kept safe, none were in any immediate risk of harm and the council reacted swiftly to address safeguarding concerns when they were raised.

The report said: "Children's social care services in Rutland continue to require improvement to be good and have not improved since the last inspection in 2016. A number of the areas that were identified as needing improvement in the last inspection have not been addressed."

Ofsted visited Rutland County Council last month to review the Council's Children's Services. These services are responsible for safeguarding children and young people, working with families, foster care and adoption.

Despite the criticism, Ofsted acknowledged that leadership of the service has been strengthened over the past year, following the appointment of a new Director of Children's Services (DCS).

Inspectors identified the following areas for improvement from their inspection:

• Management oversight and decision-making to ensure that children's cases are comprehensively overseen and their progress is closely reviewed
• The quality of assessments and plans to ensure that they identify needs and lead to improvements in children's well-being
• Commissioning and contract monitoring arrangements
• Rutland's housing offer for vulnerable young people and care leavers
• Early permanence planning for children
• The timeliness of foster carer annual reviews

Overall, Ofsted judged that Rutland's Children's Services require improvement to be good.

Coun David Wilby, Cabinet Member for Safeguarding Children and Young People at Rutland County Council, said: "Ofsted's recent scheduled inspection of our Children's Services found that there were no safeguarding issues in Rutland. However, we do need to improve our overall system of care for local children. We think this is a fair assessment and believe that we are already well on the way to making these improvements possible.

"Undoubtedly, this is a challenging area but there is no shortage of determination and expertise among our staff, who work tirelessly to do the very best for our children and young people. Prior to this latest inspection, we have already taken steps to strengthen our Management Team, to give us better oversight and direction. We have also drawn up a clear Quality Improvement Plan and put in place a new structure to provide regular progress checks.

"Helped by Ofsted's findings, I am confident that we can build on work that is already being done in order to achieve the very best results for our children."

Rutland County Council says it has adopted a new approach in the way it governs improvements to Children's Services, while changes to its management structure that were already underway prior to the Ofsted inspection will be concluded.

Improvement areas and activities that were highlighted during the inspection will continue and a full action plan in response to Ofsted's findings will be finalised. This will need to be submitted to Ofsted by the July 21, the council added.

Ofsted's latest report on Rutland's Children's Services, dated March 2020, can be viewed online here.