Cornwall Council’s children’s services has been given an ‘outstanding’ rating from inspectors.

The judgement was made following an inspection last month and is an improvement from the last inspection which rated them as good.

Ofsted gives ratings for four areas which were as follows:

the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families – Outstanding

the experiences and progress of children who need help and protection – Good

the experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers – Outstanding

overall effectiveness – Outstanding

In her report lead inspector Emmy Tomsett said: “Children in Cornwall benefit from good and outstanding services. The longstanding and committed senior leadership team has decisively and persistently focused on improving services for children.

“Services for children in need of help and protection have improved further and are now good. Children in care and care leavers benefit from high quality support from social workers who are committed to and ambitious about improving their outcomes and life chances.”

The report also praised the senior leadership team and highlighted “continuous improvement, this had resulted in strengthened services”.

Ofsted did highlight some areas for improvement including further support for 16 and 17-year-olds who are homeless, and improving the quality of plans for children.

Sally Hawken, Cornwall Council Cabinet member for children, wellbeing and public health, said: “In every area the report says that we have improved in every area.

“We have looked at the things that we needed to improve on and we have worked hard to do that. It has been a trajectory of improvement since the dark days of 2009.

“It is a journey that we have been on and you can see the differences from then and this is where we wanted to get to.

“It is  a point where we can never be complacent, we can always get better and we will continue to look at how we can improve.”

Cllr Hawken said that Cornwall Council was the only authority in the south west to have an outstanding rating for children’s services and also paid tribute to all the staff involved in the service.

She also highlighted that the report had focused on how the council listens to children and ensures they are directly involved.

And she said the report was not just a reflection of the quality and standard of services provided by Cornwall Council, but also all the other agencies that the council works with in providing children’s services.

She added: “First and foremost our staff have achieved this. It is not easy times with such a demand for services and with a background of cuts and reduced budgets. In that context this rating is really exceptional.”

Cllr Hawken said the council had already started work on addressing the areas selected for improvement and agreed with the inspectors.

She said: “What you don’t want is for inspectors highlighting things that you need to improve that you didn’t know about. We were already aware that we need to make improvements in those areas and have already started that.”

The Cabinet member said that “nobody sits on their laurels” and the council will continue to work hard to provide good quality services.

She added: “The workforce is dedicated to helping children in Cornwall, we have fabulous family support workers and all the people who work to provide for our children.”