SURREY County Council’s children’s services remain “inadequate”, three years after Ofsted first flagged up serious failings.

In a warning letter sent last week to the Department for Education, following Ofsted’s ninth visit since 2014, Linda Steele wrote: “Inspectors have consistently identified shortcomings in the quality of services to children, including a lack of effectiveness in managing risk.

“The local authority has made some progress to implement the necessary improvements, but the pace of practice improvements for children in need of help and protection is too slow.”

“It has made some progress to implement the necessary improvements, but the pace of practice improvements for children in need of help and protection is too slow.”

The inspection found in the majority of cases audited by Surrey for the purpose of the visit, there were “significant deficits” in the quality of basic social work practice. In two cases, protective action was necessary to ensure they were safe.

Visits to children were generally purposeful and most were visited in accordance with their plans.

But in a small minority of cases sampled, there were “unacceptable” delays in visits taking place. In the worst case, there was a delay of seven months.

A council spokesman said: “We know our care and support for children isn’t yet good enough and we fully accept these findings which mirror our own concerns.

“We’re all determined to make and embed improvements to ensure our services are as good as they can possibly be.”

A record 31 local authorities are under some form of intervention for failings in children’s services identified by Ofsted.

More than 20 are subject to statutory directions in which the Education Secretary legally requires an authority to take action. The remainder, including Surrey, have been issued with improvement notices.

Many councils believe the framework for monitoring performance, introduced in 2013, fails to recognise the complexities of child protection and is too quick to draw negative conclusions.

Lib Dem spokesman for children and families, councillor Chris Botten, said: “These are very serious criticisms of Surrey County Council, three years after children’s services were inspected by Ofsted and subsequently rated as inadequate.

“There is a long list of failings that have been identified – the poor quality of social work, weaknesses in managerial oversight, children not receiving the right help at the right time and, in some cases, children being at risk of harm.

“It is clear the pace of improvement within Surrey has been too slow and in some cases basic social work practice is not being followed.

“What is needed now is a step change in the drive to improve these services, much better communication and lines of accountability between management and the front line and a real sense of leadership from the council that it has the will, drive and expertise to turn these services around for the benefit of children in Surrey.

“Senior management should resist the temptation to blame the frontline and their immediate superiors as, in reality, it is the failure of leadership over the years that has left staff without the right guidance and with case loads too large for them to manage well.

“Senior managers must listen to the social workers as well as the children.

““Doing more of the same won’t put things right; imagination and innovation are urgently needed. No social worker goes to work to do a bad job – they and the children of Surrey are being let down.”