The authority, which was judged "inadequate" for safeguarding in its Ofsted annual performance assessment and subject to a critical joint area review in January, has undertaken an improvement programme led by chief executive Michael Coughlin.
But at a meeting of the borough's education and children's services scrutiny panel, Coughlin was forced to defend figures showing a drop of assessments completed on time from 62.5 per cent to 45.9 per cent between April and May this year.
Responding to concerns from Liberal Democrat councillor and vice-chair of the panel Kirsten Bayes, Coughlin said the authority had recently changed the way it processes and records assessments to comply with national guidelines.
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