VULNERABLE children are being put at risk of abuse because they are not getting the help they need early enough, a joint inspection has found.
The Care Inspectorate, which published the report, said that staff mostly responded well to signs of neglect but in "a few" cases help was not offered in time.
Some children were also put at greater risk of neglect because vulnerable parents were not getting the support that they needed.
The report on children and young people's services across an entire local authority area found some very good practices but "important weaknesses" in aspects of child protection monitoring.
Teams made up officers from the Care Inspectorate, Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland have been carrying out inspections across East Lothian, where nearly a fifth of the 100,000 population is under 16, since October.
Their findings were in the report which was published yesterday and said: "Once staff recognise the signs that children and young people may be experiencing the adverse effects of neglect, they take effective steps to improve their wellbeing.
"However, a few children who are experiencing neglect are not getting the help they need early enough.
"Staff need to act more effectively at an early stage when there are signs that children and young people are experiencing neglect and poor parenting."
Annette Bruton, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate, said: "By working with our partners we can ensure we build up an accurate picture of how services are performing.
"From our inspections of care services for children and young people we know that the vast majority in Scotland are performing well."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article