COUNTY council bosses have vowed to improve their fostering service after a report found it to be “in breach of regulations.”

The Ofsted report into Lancashire’s children’s department said services for vulnerable, looked-after children were “inadequate”.

It found some youngsters continued to be placed with carers who had not been formally approved, and there was overcrowding in some foster homes.

As revealed in the Lancashire Telegraph last week, two senior officers have left their post ahead of the review being made public today.

Yesterday bosses repeated their insistence Gill Rigg, director of children's integrated services, and Sue Fadipe, head of central services, had left by “mutual agreement”.

It is understood their departures were part of a restructuring of the department ahead of a re-inspection later this month as Ofsted steps up its monitoring of the county.

The Joint Area Review said arrangements for safeguarding children in foster care were “inadequate due to a lack of compliance with national minimum standards and weak performance management arrangements.”

It praised the educational achievements of children overall, but said this was an “important weakness” in relation to youngsters who were looked after.

The fostering service had been critised in a previous report from Ofsted, and yesterday council bosses admitted progress had not been fast enough on improving.

Helen Denton, who took over as executive director for children and young people at the council this summer, said the issues identified by Ofsted were in relation to administration procedures and paperwork and said improvements had already been made.

She said: “Obviously we want it to be a lot better. But we can’t improve everything overnight and we are not there yet in terms of our journey to excellence.”

And county council leader Hazel Harding insisted no young people had been put in danger by the service’s shortcomings.

She added: “We feel it’s moved on, and we are confident next time will be very different to their original findings.”

Areas singled out for praise included service management, improving outcomes for children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, child protection and partnership working.

The findings of the review were divided into five categories: Safeguarding (adequate), Looked after children (inadequate), Learning difficulties/disabilities (good), Service management (good) and Capacity to improve (adequate).