HILLINGDON'S children and young people services have received a glowing report in Oftsed's annual performance assessment.
Two of the seven categories were given the highest possible rating of four which is classed as outstanding, and the remaining five judgement areas were were also praised as good.
The council achieved top score in the 'staying safe' criteria and was one of only 17 in the country to do so also scoring highly in the 'capacity to improve' category.
The report, issued today (Wednesday), commended Hillingdon's performance as being especially impressive considering the difficulties presented by high numbers of asylum seeking children coming through Heathrow Airport.
Chris Spencer, director for education and children's services said: "In Hillingdon we consistently deliver good services to children and young people, having a positive impact on outcomes. We are extremely proud of the hard work by our staff to ensure that we are good or outstanding in all of our services to young people and their help in improving our service.
"In Hillingdon we have a challenging job to do due to the unaccompanied asylum seeking children and feel that we have lots of knowledge to share with other authorities about how we work with these young people to create positive outcomes for them. These results give us a great platform to improve our good service even more in future and build on the plans we have for children and young people in the borough."
In the report, the reduced number of permanent exclusions from both primary and secondary schools was praised, as was the work of support teams for children with disablities or learning difficulties.
The Hillingdon youth council was also noted as impressive as well as the number of leisure activities available during school holidays.
The report listed areas for improvement including worries that targets for reducing the teenage pregnancy rate were regarded as unlikely to be met, and the proportion of young people in the borough undergoing drug treatment was higher than its statistical neighbours.
