IMPROVEMENTS have been made to children’s services in Poole following an Ofsted inspection in September.

Inspectors rated the council-run service as ‘requires improvement’ after assessing aspects such as adoption, care leavers, and child protection.

An improvement plan, which was submitted to Ofsted in March, has already seen the introduction of specialist foster carer schemes for children who require an emergency placement and also young people who would otherwise be held in police custody overnight.

In its report, Ofsted said an insufficient number of local placements had led to seven out of 15 children spending the night in a police cell after being arrested.

At the time, they found admission to care for older children had been delayed occasionally due to a lack of suitable foster placements.

As well as the new specialist foster carer schemes, the council has increased staffing capacity in its multi-agency safeguarding hub.

It has also strengthened management capacity for the social work out of hours service.

At a recent cabinet meeting, Cllr Mike White, portfolio holder for children, young people and capital projects, praised the work of children’s services staff.

“A stack of multi-agency work has gone into this plan. It was submitted to Ofsted in March without comment, which is frankly positive. I think this is a really good plan and I commend it to members,” he said.

Cabinet members voted unanimously to endorse the improvement plan. It will be scrutinised at the next meeting of the People Overview and Scrutiny committee (children and young people).

When it was inspected, the borough was looking after 200 children – an increase from 190 in March 2017.

More than 900 children were identified as being formally in need of a specialist children’s service.

The council is expecting to receive a ‘focussed visit’ or Joint Targeted Area inspection by Ofsted in 2018/19 to find evidence of improvement.

Leader of the council Janet Walton said at the meeting the children’s services team had “not wasted any time in bringing about effective improvement.”