Cheshire East's child protection services have been judged as 'inadequate' by Ofsted.
The watchdog report was published following an unannounced inspection in March, during which inspectors found that some children were left at potential risk of significant harm.
Inspectors said that management decision-making was inconsistent, in a significant proportion of cases not all risks to children and young people were explored and some referrals were prematurely closed. In other instances they noted that there was delay in commencing assessments leaving children and young people potentially at risk of harm.
The report also described the quality of child in need planning as inadequate, because not all children have a plan, many plans do not contain clear and achievable aims and they are not robustly reviewed.
There were positive points from the inspection, Ofsted found that planning to protect young people identified at risk of child sexual exploitation is 'robust', when children are at risk of immediate harm prompt and effective action is taken, in the majority of cases, and help to prevent older children and young people getting involved in anti-social behaviour is generally good.
Leader of Cheshire East Council Councillor Michael Jones said: "We accept Ofsted's judgement and, although this is not typical of the high quality work we do with local children and young people, we consider it a fair reflection of some areas of our practice.
"Whilst the inspection identified that there were no children or young people where immediate action was needed to protect them from significant harm, we accept that, in a small number of cases, our way of responding to concerns resulted in the potential for risk.
"Prior to the inspection, we had recognised the need to improve and make consistent the standard of our social care for children and young people. Like so many other local authorities around the country, we have done a great deal of work recently to achieve Ofsted's new higher standards.
"It is heartening that in two of Ofsted's judgements our approach was deemed to be 'adequate', these being the effectiveness of help and protection for vulnerable children and leadership and governance of this key area of the Council's activities. The 'inadequate' outcome in relation to the 'quality of practice' caused the overall inspection judgement to be 'inadequate'."
Councillor Michael Jones continued "Action by the Council to put in place most of the recommended improvements from the inspection have been under way for quite some time, and many are already complete. For example, we have planned with partners over a number of months the design of ChECS (Cheshire East Consultation Service) - a new service which will handle all contacts for children's services. This went live on April 22 and will tackle a number of the issues raised in the inspection report.
"We will continue to work hard to fulfil our ambition to provide outstanding services to local children and young people, and will think now about how we can make further improvements quickly, in the light of the helpful Ofsted recommendations. I would like to reassure the people of Cheshire East that, whilst the sobering words of an Ofsted report depict a view of our services at a specific time, you have my commitment that we will redouble our efforts from this point onwards to get things right for our Cheshire East families. I am confident that, before the end of the year, there will be a visible difference as we meet these requirements in full."
