Herefordshire Council will have to demonstrate it can make improvements in order to keep control over its troubled children's services department, a commissioner has concluded.

Last year watchdog Ofsted rated the council's services as inadequate, concluding that children were ‘not protected from harm'.

Children's commissioner Eleanor Brazil, who was appointed by the Department for Education to oversee services, said she had identified ‘some very recent signs of limited improvement' but said that the ‘lack of a sufficiently rigorous and systematic approach has meant that any improvements have been slow'.

She has given the council six months to ‘demonstrate that it can effect real change'.

The council's chief executive Paul Walker said: ‘Improving Herefordshire children's services remains this council's number one priority.

'There are areas of progress identified by the commissioner on which we can build, but we accept the pace of change has not been fast enough.

‘We are determined that we will bring about the changes necessary in the timescales set out so that we build a better service fit for the future.'

Director of children's services, Darryl Freeman, added: ‘This is a difficult report for everybody working in the children's service and I want to say sorry to all the children and families who have not received the support that they deserved.'