Majority of children services in need of improvement, Ofsted warns

Wilshaw claimed that weak leadership and increasing workloads were leading causes of poor care, outlining that child protection was performing particularly badly.

In its third annual report on children’s social care in England, the watchdog cautioned that poor leadership was letting the most vulnerable children down.

Out of 87 authorities which were inspected under a new more rigorous regime, 21 were rated inadequate and 43 as required improvement. Just 23 authorities were ranked as good or outstanding.

Services rated poor involved issues where children had too many changes of social worker high caseloads, delays in undertaking visits and failure to see children alone.

Inspectors identified a wide variation in caseloads for social workers, with some regions having seven children per staff member and up to 34.2 children for others.

The report said: “Failure is not because of lesser or greater funding; it's about how local authorities use their funding. Some of the highest spending local authorities were also the weakest."

However, councillor Roy Perry, chairman of the LGA's Children and Young People Board, argued: “This is in a climate where local authority funding suffered major cuts during the last Parliament, and while councils have made tough choices in order to protect children's services, the system is under significant strain.

"Despite rising demand and reducing budgets, the majority of councils are rated as 'requires improvement' or better, with those councils that have strong children's services working to help others.

"There can be no doubt that local government has the commitment and expertise required to turn around struggling services, without the need for externally imposed structures or operating models.

"Giving councils the time to establish solid foundations for improvement, learn from other authorities and embed new processes and learning, is vital for them to move forward for the benefit of their local areas."

A Department for Education spokesman said: "Nothing is more important than keeping children safe, and we will not hesitate to intervene when local authorities are failing vulnerable children and families.

"We are committed to improving the quality of children's social work, and the Children and Social Work Bill will enable the creation of a specialist regulator with a relentless focus on raising quality, education, training and practice in both children's and adults' social work."