"POSITIVE progress is being made to improve Children's Services in Bradford, but services to help homeless young people are still not good enough.

These are some of the conclusions made by Ofsted inspectors who returned to inspect the Council's Children's Service department for the first time since a damning inspection report late last year deemed the service "inadequate."

Earlier this month inspectors returned for the first of several monitoring visits - where they looked at the work being done to turn things around. They have now written to Gladys Rhodes White, Interim Strategic Director of Children’s Services, to let them know their findings.

Ofsted has said that progress is being made to improve the department, but says there are still issues that need serious attention.

Although the letter has not been published, the Council has revealed some of its content, and members of the Executive will discuss the update at a meeting on Tuesday.

Bradford Council's Children's Services judged 'inadequate' with Ofsted saying the service has 'rapidly deteriorated'

Excerpts from the letter being presented to the Executive include: "The Authority has started to make positive progress in improving its front door services with better screening of contacts, consent is better managed although there is still variability.

"Staff are embracing new ways of doing things.

"The interim Strategic Director and her leadership team have swiftly reached a good understanding of the scale and depth of inadequacies.

"The improvement plan addresses the areas of improvement identified but would benefit from a greater focus on outcomes for children and young people.

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"Homeless young people age 16-17 years-old who present to the council for help and support do not receive a good service.

"Improvements identified at the last inspection have not been progressed to meet the needs of these young people.

"Interpreters are appropriately used for parents whose first language is not English, but this is not consistently the case for children.

"Council leaders are fully committed to supporting the necessary changes so children receive good quality services. There has been significant financial investment, facilitating an uplift in social work salaries, retention payments and an increase in the social work establishment. Social workers are being supported in their learning and development and are fully engaged and enthusiastic about the change programme."

Mrs Rhodes White said: “We’re at the start of our improvement journey so we’re very pleased that Oftsed recognise that we are making positive progress in many areas, particularly those at our front door where we need to assess the risk to children.

"We know there is still much more to do including focusing our improvement plan on delivering the outcomes children need and making rapid improvements to the services we provide for homeless young people. We will be working hard with our staff and our partners to deliver these improvements.”

Kersten England, Chief Executive of Bradford Council, said: “We are absolutely committed to bringing our services for children and families up to the standard they need and deserve. It was important that we put improvements in place quickly and Ofsted have recognised that these are now beginning to make a difference. We know there are many more areas we need to improve to get services to where they need to be, but we are determined to build on this positive start so we can learn and improve.”

The Executive meets in City Hall at 10.30am on Tuesday.