BURY social services have been "named and shamed" and warned they are in danger of being taken over by a neighbouring council.

Government ministers have put the department on its "at risk" register and ordered it to get its house in order.

Bury has been placed on a blacklist of 17 local authorities which have failed to carry out their duties to inspect local children's and old folks' homes.

But council leaders have hit back at the findings, saying the minister's figures are well out of date and that Bury's performance has dramatically improved since.

This week the Government published, for the first time, performance tables for England's 150 social services departments.

In 1998-99, only half the number of inspections of children's homes were carried out in Bury, the worst record in the land.

Bury also missed 25 per cent of its scheduled visits to adult residential homes, the second worse record.

Another cause for concern was that only 46 per cent of people in need received a proper statement of needs and services. Health minister John Hutton said: "If you think of all the scandals and cases of abuse at children's homes, it is pretty horrifying that Bury failed to do this. It is quite unacceptable."

From next April, the Government will have the power to take responsibility for social services away from councils and hand them to other local authorities.

Council leader Derek Boden admitted that the department had failed in his duties, but pointed out that the figures referred to last year.

"We didn't manage to inspect the number of homes on the number of occasions that we needed to do. One of the main reasons for that was that the head of the inspection unit died.

"There was a delay in recruiting a successor, partially because you cannot simply ask someone else in social services to cover for you - the inspection unit is independent and has to operate at arm's length from the rest of the department.

"Also, another inspector was off on maternity leave, which made an impact and we fell behind."

He said that since a new unit head was appointed last January, the situation started to pick up immediately.

"I am very confident that the picture which emerges this year will be very different," he said. "We are now on target and meeting our obligations to carry out the required number of inspections."

Coun Boden also hit out at the suggestion that another authority should be able to step in.

"I think it is right and proper that Bury should take responsibility for safeguarding the interests of our own people," he said. "We should acknowledge criticism and do something about it."

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