In August Ofsted inspected Tower Hamlets Children’s Services to check for progress since the disastrous April 2017 report that condemned Children’s Services as ’inadequate’.

Ofsted inspectors blasted both politicians and council officers for creating a situation so bad that none of them knew the extent of the failures until the inspection itself.

Verdict now? Better, but with more work to be done in key areas.

Let’s be clear, our children’s service is recovering from an abject failure to protect the most vulnerable children.

Mayor Biggs’s Labour administration now boasts that it has set itself the ambitious target of once more achieving a ‘good’ rating for 2019. If only it had not been lost in 2017.

Ofsted’s monitoring will only end if Tower Hamlets Council passes a full inspection in September 2019.

Let’s hope that before then none of our children have to pay the very real price of Labour’s bluster and arrogance.