Southhampton City Council has been praised by Government inspectors for its adoption service.

However the council was told it needed to improve parts of its social services and the review team cast doubt on whether or not it would be able to sustain an adequate service and called for it to improve the way it managed its budgets.

It also expressed concern about high numbers of children registered for short periods on the Child Protection Register and increasing numbers of children being looked after by the authority.

It also criticised the way the council limited services for adults and older people to those with high level needs which leds to some people experiencing long delays in getting assessments or receiving services.

"Southampton city council needs to manage change better, become better informed about its performance and progress on meeting priorities if more local people are to be well served by good quality services," it said.

But the inspectors congratulated the council on its "extremely good performance in placing children for adoption", and its work in shared care between health and social services for children and adults with mental health needs.

It also praised its "efficient and effective management practices" and good relationships with other council department such as education.

The authority, which has a population of about 216,000, spends proportionally more on physical disabilities and mental health than similar authorities but less on older people and people with learning disabilities, concluded the report by the Audit Commission and the Social Services Inspectorate.

John Bolton, director of joint reviews, said: "Southampton has made some progress towards beginning to address the critical issues it faces in the future, but it is still grappling with the complex problem of creating and establishing a new authority whilst at the same time trying to understand the problems faced by the services it has inherited."

A copy of the full report is available on the joint reviews website or from Audit Commission publications, freephone 0800 502030, priced £15.