THE social services department responsible for paying allowances to adoptive parents in Newport has been ordered to improve after a report found it was “not well controlled" and said "changes were required urgently”.

An internal audit report was presented to a meeting of Newport City Council's Governance and Audit Committee on Thursday, October 27, where the authority's director of social services Sally Jenkins described the situation as “awful”, and said staff absences were to blame.

“No child or no adoption family have suffered as a result,” she said.

Three members of the department were off work due to ill-health, including the principal officer and the finance officer. This meant that assessments and application forms weren’t completed.

At the meeting, Cllr Stephen Cocks, said: “In my experience usually when someone is off ill, the job is not just left.”

Cllr Cocks, who represents Caerleon, added: “How had it gone on so long without it being raised?”

Ms Jenkins said: “We were all struggling in that period of time to see if we had the right resources and capacity.”

She added that training within the department was currently taking place to ensure more members are able to do a range of tasks, in the event someone is off work.

Dr Norma Barry, who sits on the committee, said there were “lessons to be learnt” from this, and added: “Obviously there’s a lot of work to do there in terms of staff capabilities.”

As a result of the disruption in the department, some adoption families have received a higher payment than usual. Ms Jenkins said: “There will not be a call-in for those over-payments – the fault lies with us.”

When pressed for the total sum of overpayments by Victoria councillor Gavin Horton, Ms Jenkins said it was “tiny” and could not give an exact amount.

The committee accepted the explanation from the social services department.

Mr Gareth Chapman, who was chairing the committee, said: “We shouldn’t be looking at the past, we should be looking to move forward.”

A follow-up audit is set to be completed by the end of this year, which will highlight whether the department has managed to improve its position.

Andrew Wathan, Chief Internal Auditor at the council said: “The proof of the pudding will be in the follow-up audit.”