Wiltshire's most vulnerable children have been put at a significant risk of harm because of failings by Wiltshire Council bosses, inspectors have said in a damning report.

Ofsted said they had found ‘serious and significant shortcomings’ in 17 of the 92 child protection cases that they selected at random.

Some children were ‘inadequately protected and exposed to potential and on-going harm’ because the management had failed front line workers who were ‘committed to doing the best they can for the child or young people they are working with’.

Union officials who represent the council’s staff have said that responsibility must land at the door of Carolyn Godfrey, the council’s £130,000-per-year corporate director for children’s services. She will not be resigning.

Tina Green, area organiser for Unison, said: “It is an incredibly difficult job. It is very easy to say that the social worker is not doing their paperwork properly but it is the manager’s job to ensure that it is robust.

“The person at the end of the day that is responsible is the director of children’s services.”

Mrs Godfrey said she knew problems existed last November but changes were only starting to be made in March, when Ofsted arrived for its two-week inspection. She said: “It was not just the managers that were not robust enough but the quality control was not there either.

“We did have some concerns when we did our own review. We were putting the changes in just when the inspectors arrived.”

One case worker, who works closely with Wiltshire Council and did not want to be named, said that they had not been invited to some child protection meetings even though they were best placed to represent the child’s interests and it was only on inviting themselves that they were able to join the meeting.

Mrs Godfrey said: “The whole purpose of a child protection plan is that it has got to be absolutely child focused. Some of the plans were not as clear as they needed to be.”

She added: “I would like to say that I am very sorry that failings have been highlighted in our services by this report. We were extremely disappointed in the outcome of the inspection, I would have anticipated a better result.”

Leader of the council Jane Scott also accepted that the council had failed and has promised to turn around its fortunes in time for the next inspection, which could come as early as six months time.

She said: “Inspections are difficult but necessary. We don’t hide away from them and we fully accept it wasn’t good enough.”