Child protection services at Cheshire East council have been rated as inadequate by a watchdog.

Ofsted made the judgement after an unannounced inspection of the children's  services department's child protection processes in March.

Inspectors said procedures to identify children who may be potentially at risk were not sufficient, cases were often closed too quickly and the experience of children going through the system varied greatly.

While they identified many examples of good practice, such as 'robust' planning to protect children identified as at risk of child sexual exploitation, inconsistencies were found, leading to an 'inadequate' rating.

Both council bosses and inspectors say at no point was a child put at any risk of immediate harm.

Senior managers at CEC said the inspection regime had been made significantly stricter in the last few years.

But they said they accepted the report's findings and already had plans in place to deal with the areas highlighted.

The report, published this week, says: “Children, young people and their families experience poor recognition of risk, delays and inconsistent management decision-making.

“This increases children and young people's potential risk of harm.”

They conclude that “as a result of the deficits above, the local authority cannot be confident frontline management oversight and decision-making is effective at all points in a child's journey through services.”

CEC is now awaiting a response from the Department of Education and can expect another inspection in the next 12 months.

In the meantime, senior officers say they are looking to recruit more experienced social workers as well as investing in early intervention and implementing a new system to improve the quality of information given to them by outside agencies such as schools.

Lorraine Butcher, strategic director for children's services at the time of the inspection, said: “We think it is a fair report.

“This is not a judgement on children's services overall, it is a judgement on some aspects of our arrangements for the protection of children.

“We were already aware we needed to improve in some of the areas highlighted and have plans in place to do that.”

-For the full story and further reaction from CEC, see next week's Express.