OFSTED inspectors have praised ‘a strong culture of continuous improvement’ in Wigan Council’s children’s service, giving it a good rating.

A team of inspectors found this encouraged learning throughout the range of services and across all staff.

Following a four-week inspection in February, they have deemed that the staff feel valued and supported and that this has helped parts of the organisation reach the top rating of outstanding.

To date 123 councils in England have been inspected under this single inspection framework.

More than 70 per cent have been rated inadequate or requiring improvement, with Wigan Council being one of only four in the north west to have been judged as good.

Adoption services were individually assessed as outstanding and praised for the high quality work to find children forever homes.

The Ofsted report highlights that the council is top in the region and second nationally for the percentage of children who have left care through adoption.

The council says its outstanding adoption service is one of the reasons why it will take the lead in a new regional adoption agency.

This will see authorities join with the existing WWiSH adoption councils Wigan, St Helens and Warrington.

The report, released today, Friday, also praises the work to strengthen links with other organisations, including schools, who work with children across the borough to improve the help available early on for those who may be in need of support through Start Well.

The inspectors also highlighted projects such as Achieving Change Together, a joint project with Rochdale Borough Council tackling child sexual exploitation, and SHARE, which is a teenage mental health support service run in conjunction with the 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Creative work by staff to give the right support for children and their families who are at risk of needing care was also noted by the inspection team, and the quality of social work was judged as consistently good in this area.

Inspectors identified a small number improvements needed in some cases but noted that plans have been put in place to address the issues raised, with initial results having a positive impact already.

James Winterbottom, director for children’s services at the council, said: “Our children’s services have been on a huge journey in the past 18 months, with many of our services transformed by reassessing how we approach what we do through The Deal.

"The inspectors recognised the positive impact programmes like Start Well, our innovation projects and the quality of our social work are having on the way we work in the community and the support we provide to children, young people and their families.

“Despite this judgement of good by Ofsted, we are very ambitious about continuing to improve the quality and effectiveness of our services in this most critical of areas.

"It is pleasing that Ofsted recognised we are aware of and in the process of improving the majority of areas they identified for improvement.

"Indeed in many instances they noted the work we are already doing and our track record of successfully implementing large scale change.

“The hard work of staff both in Wigan Council and across our partners has shone through in this Ofsted report and we are really pleased that inspectors recognised the good services being offered for children and young people in the borough and the priority we give to keeping children safe.

"In particular our adoption services showed once again why Wigan has been chosen to lead the new regional adoption agency thanks to its outstanding work.”