Some progress has been made in improving services for children and young people in Moray, inspectors have said.

An inspection led by the Care Inspectorate in February 2017 identified important weaknesses in how children and young people were supported in Moray, with improvements needed in leadership, strategic planning, and how services work together to improve the lives of children experiencing neglect.

A follow-up review of services has now been carried out to check on progress and the findings are published today.

Inspectors said they were confident that partners have taken the findings of the earlier inspection “very seriously” and that the Moray partnership was working hard to deliver change and improvement.

They said encouraging progress was now being made across most of the recommendations made in February.

Karen Reid, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: “We are pleased to note that some progress has been made on addressing the matters raised at our last inspection.

“Chief officers are beginning to deliver clearer leadership and direction, and have raised their aspirations for improving services.

“We saw encouraging progress in how staff across services identify and assess concerns about children and young people experiencing neglect, with better quality assurance.

“Partners are taking encouraging steps to fulfil their corporate parenting responsibilities more effectively. However, a joint approach to ensuring that children, young people and their families are fully engaged in planning and designing services still has to be developed.

“We now expect partners to build on the work they have done over the last few months to drive real improvements, to ensure that children and their families experience more effective support and intervention.

“The Care Inspectorate and our scrutiny partners will continue to monitor progress in Moray, and will continue to offer support for improvement to community planning partners.”

A second progress review will be carried out in the next 12 months.

The progress review is available here.