A leaked report reveals that Buckinghamshire County Council was aware its children’s services were “struggling to operate”, resulting in young people being placed at increased risk.

Lack of personnel, “salami slicing cuts” to the service, poor management at a senior level and a preoccupation with polishing the council’s “tarnished reputation” rather than protecting Buckinghamshire’s children were all concerns raised in the draft document.

In August, Ofsted’s damning report into the county’s “inadequate” children’s services was published.

The council was ordered to take immediate action to address its shortcomings and Red Quadrant was appointed by the Department for Education to oversee improvements in the service.

The document highlights a number of the administration’s shortcomings.

Criticism was laid at the door of chief executive Chris Williams, who takes home £259,301 from the council a year.

The report states: “There is evidence to demonstrate that issues were raised on several occasions with the chief executive but that the structural and practice failings were not sufficiently addressed in an appropriate timescale.”

It continued: “There was a corporate view that children’s services, was profligate and out of control of its budget and, as a result, this view contributed to warnings being largely ignored.”

Red Quadrant found that Mr Williams has now taken a more hands-on approach, but advised him to stand down from his role as chair on the service’s improvement board in favour of someone independent.

Council leader, Martin Tett, was also criticised in the report. It was thought that, as many of the council’s workforce have not met with him, they may be “unaware of the council’s stated priorities and the level of commitment to these”.

The administration was considered to be more concerned with covering up its blemishes than fixing the root of the problem, Red Quadrant found.

The report stated: “The immediate political attention focused on the particular criticism within the inspection report that the council had not prioritised children’s safeguarding.”

It continued: “This distraction meant that the council missed the opportunity both to accept responsibility publicly for the inadequacies outlined in the report, and to spell out its commitment to improving services for Buckinghamshire children and families.

“In our view, the main motivation at this stage among some key politicians to deliver the improvement plan successfully was the tarnished reputation of the council rather than safeguarding Buckinghamshire children.”

The time it took for the council to act on improving its services was slammed as being “an endemic organisational issue”.

There were also calls to recruit more permanent staff and reduce the dependency on interim or agency posts.

A strain on the council’s budget for children’s services also took its toll and the department struggled to cope with a significant increase in referrals, which led to there being “insufficient” capacity to deal with caseloads.

Even the council’s employees question the level of change that can be brought about in the council’s service, according to Red Quadrant.

The report read: “There are strong indications that staff within children’s services do not fully believe the council can effectively implement change... morale is low among frontline staff.

“They report feeling undervalued and unsupported as a result of the differentiated treatment between departments and issues such as poorer rates of pay when compared to geographic neighbours.”