IT will likely take two or three years to turn Bradford’s Children’s Services from inadequate to “good” - Council bosses have claimed.

At a meeting of Bradford Council’s Decision Making Executive yesterday members discussed a recent letter from Ofsted that claimed improvements to children’s services in the district were not happening fast enough.

The department was judged inadequate last October, and following a recent monitoring visit by inspectors, the Council was told the pace of improvement was not fast enough.

They said there was “legacy of poor practice, which has not been addressed” and that too many staff were leaving the department on short notice “impacting negatively on children’s lives.”

Bradford Council Children's Services still inadequate finds Ofsted

However the inspectors said there were also signs of improvement and examples of good work.

Mark Douglas took over as Strategic Director of Children’s Services last week, and spoke at yesterday’s Executive meeting.

He said: “There are elements that Ofsted see as a good service, but they say improvements are too slow. There continues to be challenges around management, and the volumes of work are too high.

“They saw good work, but things are too variable.

“They said staff speak positively of working for the Council and they are committed to improving the service.”

Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “Clearly the report is not good enough and there is a lot of work still to be done. However we were aware of the challenges, and nothing in Ofsted’s report comes as a surprise.”

Councillor Adrian Farley, Executive for Children and families, said: “We’re not in the place I’d like us to be. I have high expectations for the department and I want to see them met. It will take about two or three years to get to a place where the service will be rated good.”

Mr Douglas replied: “There are some very good foundations in place to support the journey of improvement from inadequate to good.

“There is a plan in place to do this, but we need to inject more pace into the improvement journey.

“This (letter from Ofsted) should be viewed as a positive experience for us to help us with our improvement journey. I am confident we can get to where we want to, two to three years seems realistic. We are making a concerted effort to improve.”

Cllr Hinchcliffe added: “There is nothing more important than the children in our district.”