FOURTEEN months ago they branded themselves “inadequate” – but youngsters are today still being failed by Southampton’s children’s services, inspectors have said.

Despite pledging to make sweeping changes after failing to safeguard vulnerable children in 2011, the city council has been told by Ofsted it must make more improvements.

And opposition leaders are calling for the Labour administration to speed up progress and ensure the city does not face “another Rotherham” situation.

An inspection by the Government watchdog, carried out in July, revealed children’s services in the city are still failing youngsters across the board.

Major criticisms included: l Not enough children are going into work, education or training after leaving care – only three out of 210 went on to higher education l Adoption is not being achieved quickly enough for almost one in five children in care l Care plans are not “thorough” or “comprehensive” and are “not effective” for some children in care l Politicians must do more to ensure the needs of looked-after children are met.

The council found itself to be “inadequate” in a report released in April 2013, prompting a widespread shake-up in the wake of the deaths of seven-year-old Blake Fowler and brothers Bradley and Jayden Adams, who all died in 2011 after serious failings by social services to protect them.

As previously reported by the Daily Echo, the council apologised earlier this year after serious case reviews showed how it failed to protect those boys and several other vulnerable children who slipped through its safety net.

This sparked the creation of a multi-agency safeguarding hub, or MASH, to ensure all authorities worked closer together to prevent similar deaths, which was praised by Ofsted.

However, while the watchdog applauded some of the council’s actions since 2013 to try and tackle the widespread failings, this latest report found the authority is “not yet delivering good protection and help and care for children”.

Conservative opposition leader Royston Smith said the improvements since April 2013 should be visible now and will tomorrow demand quicker action from council bosses.

He added he would be seeking assurances at a full council meeting tomorrow that children in the city were not being subjected to the same horrendous abuse as found in Rotherham in a recent report.

Cllr Smith said: “Our social workers had heavy caseloads and I know our ambition was to get them down and we have done but they are not down by enough.

“It doesn’t help to say ‘look at us again in 18 months’, we should be talking about showing what we are doing in three months, six months, nine months, and then a year.

“I am asking the council to demonstrate we are making progress. It is now about getting more social workers in by making Southampton a more attractive place to work.

“I’m not content that this work is not going more quickly and that they are not going to be demonstrating improvements in a much tighter timescale.”

But he added the improvements already in place were taking the council in the right direction.

A report released last month revealed 1,400 children were abused in the South Yorkshire town from 1997 to 2013.

Now Cllr Smith wants to know whether anything similar has been found in Southampton.

Cllr Smith added: “Everyone here is responsible as corporate parents and we need to make sure we are doing enough.

“And on Wednesday I am asking the question about what assurances the council can give us after Rotherham that something similar is not happening here. We have to demonstrate our commitment to the children of Southampton.”

Defending the council, Alison Elliott, director of people, said the authority would be in a much better position under its next inspection in 18 months.

She said: “While the Ofsted inspection highlighted areas where we need to improve performance, the report also acknowledges the significant progress already made to improve children’s services in Southampton.

“In April 2013 children’s services were assessed as being ‘inadequate’. Since then, we have been working to radically transform the service and this remains the council’s top priority.”

She added: “The foundations for ongoing improvement are now firmly in place. Our aim is that if Ofsted were to inspect children’s services in 18 months’ time they would judge us as ‘good."

For more on the serious case review click below.