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Monitoring of Cardiff’s social services for children will cease after Dr Brian Gibbons, Wales’ health and social services minister, said today that the council had made “substantial progress”.

Cardiff was heavily criticised in previous inspection reports, as reported by Community Care, but Gibbons said it “deserved congratulating” in overcoming “serious” problems in services for vulnerable children and their families.

The council was subjected to detailed monitoring every three months by the Social Services Inspectorate for Wales after an inspection in 2002 identified poor children’s services.

Neelam Bhardwaja, Cardiff’s corporate director of opportunities, said: “This is an opportunity for the service to leave behind the unfortunate legacy of the joint review of 2002 and build on the progress it has made towards being an efficient, effective and a responsive service.”