Investigation making sure kids are safe in Essex begins

The County Council's looking into whether lessons have been learned and improvements made since its Safeguarding Children was heavily criticised.

Since being ranked among the worst in the country in the care it provided for vulnerable children, an extra 40 care workers have been taken on in the last six months, to help reduce the number of cases the each deal with.

Previously a social worker could have 25 children at any one time.

The council's set up a Safeguarding Sub-Committee that will now go to speak to families, care workers and schools to find out if changes have made a difference, what's going well and what more needs to be done.

Terri Sargent's been talking to Heart: "There have been a number of things that have been carried out to correct issues and that's why this has been set up, to make sure we don't ever fall behind again.

The findings won't be a secret, everybody will be able to know how far we're getting and the improvements we're making. If there are areas of concern we will have to report them, but we will also report the areas where things have improved."