The “outstanding” involvement of young people in Norfolk with the services provided to them by County Hall has been praised by Oftsed.

The "outstanding" involvement of young people in Norfolk with the services provided to them by County Hall has been praised by Ofsted.

Inspectors have commended the county council's engagement with youngsters in a report on services for children and young people across England.

The report, Narrowing the Gap, finds that local authorities are well on the way to improving outcomes for children and young people but also reveals that the most vulnerable and underachieving are still being let down.

Miriam Rosen, Ofsted's director of education, said: "Councils and their partners should ensure that services are planned and delivered in an integrated way and focus on ensuring that individual children and young people make progress."

Rosalie Monbiot, cabinet member for children and young people at Norfolk County Council, said: "We are already a beacon authority for the engagement of young people and have been commended by Ofsted for our outstanding involvement of children and young people in our decision-making and for our very good youth service.

"Our consultation with youngsters in developing our children and young people's plan generated nearly 6,500 responses, which is superb.

"We have many other initiatives in place to engage with young people from all walks of life, including, for example, successful and active groups that feed back the views of children in care and young people leaving care, and very active involvement in the UK Youth Parliament. For us, every Norfolk child really does matter."

An example of working with young people is the panel of youngsters brought together to translate the draft of the children and young people's plan in to document that children could understand.

They then helped develop consultation packs for primary and secondary schools across the county.

The Ofsted report, available online, gives an overall picture rather than a performance rating for each local authority.

Inspectors found 107 out of the 139 authorities were making a good contribution towards delivering better outcomes for children.