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A new Audit Commission report has warned that inspections in Wales have revealed a disappointing picture of social care services, writes Alex Dobson.

"No services inspected to date have been judged to be serving most people well. While nine authorities were judged to be serving some people well, three were not considered to be serving people well at all. And less than half of the councils' services were believed to have promising prospects for future improvement," says the report.

It adds, "By April 2002, over 100 authorities in England and 12 in Wales had been inspected. The results present a generally disappointing picture of social care services in Wales."

The report says that joint reviews in Wales have found that:

* effort is needed to improve children's services

* services for adults need to promote rehabilitation and independence

* limited evidence of carers' needs being separately recognised

* councils struggling to provide even basic information on activity, costs, trends and performance against targets;

* councils need to concentrate more on their role as commissioners.

"This report shows a generally mixed picture of the state of public services in Wales. There are some very positive signs in the overall quality of education provision and in some areas of the health service," said Sir Andrew Foster, Controller of the Audit Commission.

"But there is also room for improvement in many parts of the NHS and in social services and housing," he added.

The report also says that surveys of users and carers have found that people are generally satisfied with their social care.

"On average, in the 15 councils where users and their carers have been surveyed in Wales, three-quarters thought that the help they had received from social services was good or excellent, and fewer than one in ten felt that it was poor or very poor (compared with 72 per cent and 11 per cent respectively for councils in England)," says the report.

The review of services is the most comprehensive since the establishment of the Welsh Assembly in 1999. The report, ‘Delivering a Better Wales' looks at local government, health and emergency services.