CABINET member Laura Mayes has defended Wiltshire Council's children's services after it was branded as requiring improvement by Ofsted.

The troubled department has fallen foul of the government watchdog since it was rated inadequate in an inspection in 2012 and accused of putting vulnerable children at risk. The council pledged £500,000 extra funding and has tried to improve recruitment and retention of social workers by paying higher salaries.

Despite improvement over the last two years an inspection in June an Ofsted inspector said the council is still not delivering delivering good protection and help for children, young people and families or delivering good care for children and young people looked after.

It says all areas of children's services – including welfare of vulnerable youngsters and children in care, adoption performance and leadership and management – require improvement.

But the report, which says Wiltshire has more than 3,000 vulnerable children on its books, says there there were no widespread or serious failures that left children being harmed or at risk of harm and the trajectory for improvement at the council is positive. It says the council's management is aware of the weaknesses in its service.

Coun Mayes believes consistency across the services for which she is responsible will eventually see Wiltshire Council rated as Good by Ofsted.

She said: “Good is a hard target to reach but that does not mean we are not aiming for it, we need to be consistent across the whole service.

“Fundamentally this service is good and is in the right place but we have got to make it consistent across the board.

“The Requires Improvement band is such a wide one. You could be almost good or almost inadequate or anywhere in between and I would say we are nearer to the Good end.”

The inspectors' report notes in the last 12 to 18 months the local authority has made determined efforts to improve services for children and young people and these have been well driven and purposeful. But it says improved management oversight is not leading to consistent improvement and the council's inability to recruit staff at all levels in hampering progress. It says too many children have frequent changes of social worker.

Social workers have an average caseload of 24 when the target is 18.

The report, which says 11.4 per cent of children in Wiltshire live in poverty, says child protection inquiries are timely and robust and outcomes for the majority of children in care are improving through good quality education and leisure provision.

Among a list of recommendations the report says the council must improve: the quality of supervision for staff, assessment of date, working with partners and case reviews.

Corporate director Carolyn Godfrey, who has been responsible for children's services since 2006, said: “We are not arguing with the report, it matches our self assessment. Ofsted identify 20 cases at random and asked us to assess them. Ofsted then looked at our assessment to see if we have assessed correctly and they said they agreed with them.”

The full Ofsted report can be found at: http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/local-authorities/wiltshire.