The management, quality and overall effectiveness of its safeguarding services were all found to be "inadequate", the lowest score a council service can receive from the inspectorate.
Among concerns was the council’s failure to cope with an increased demand in safeguarding services caused by the raising of its child protection threshold.
The report states: "The legacy of poor decision making and increased demand for referrals associated with the new threshold for access to services have had a significant impact on workload pressures experienced by frontline staff.
"As a result, the timeliness and quality of assessments is poor. There are delays in following up decisions; responses to referrals and assessments are not adequately recorded; and monitoring systems are overstretched."
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