The director of children’s services in Wandsworth Council has admitted that she should have known about the problems Ofsted found during its unannounced inspection last year.

Dawn Warwick, director of children’s services at Wandsworth, told the children’s services scrutiny committee it was clear inspectors would find problems when they arrived on site on November 24.

January 27: "Weaknesses" identified in Wandsworth's children's services leads to staff shake-up ahead of agreement with Richmond

January 28: "The game has changed": Council could not have prepared for Ofsted inspection, as £500,000 is allocated to reshuffle staff​

February 17: Wandsworth Council criticised for putting vulnerable children in B&Bs

She said: "I knew things were not going well in the first two days as Ofsted found problems on our front door that we should have known about. We had four children in bed and breakfasts and two had been there a long time and we did not have risk assessments on this."

Children’s services will be monitored by Ofsted every four to six weeks from now until April 2017, when it is expected there will be a follow up assessment.

Councillors and officers have admitted a cultural change is needed to address issues.

In the council’s plan to address the problems in the department, it is stated: “There needs to a stronger culture of challenge, an acceptance of the importance of compliance and a greater sense of urgency in order to reduce risks to children.

“Strategic planning of workshops, training etc needs to address this.”

Leader of the council Ravi Govindia said: "This has been written by this authority and not by Ofsted. It is about recognition that challenge is an important part of improvement.

"That is a bold, open and transparent statement for this council to make."

As part of the improvements plans, Wandsworth will set up a children’s services standards committee and a smaller committee made up of Councillor Kathy Tracey, the cabinet member for education and children’s services, the leader, and the chief executive.

Labour councillors proposed an amendment to include a member of the opposition in the team, but it was defeated.

A separate Labour amendment, which was also defeated by Conservative members, called for the censure of the leader and executive member for "failing to carry out their responsibilities to ensure proper and effective management of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers".

Speaking on the amendment, councillor Tony Belton said: "We have gone from outstanding, to good, to inadequate and requires improvement.

"One member of staff found that too difficult to take and has left as a consequence, but nonetheless, we have been in control whilst this happened, imposing a tremendous amount of other change on this organisation.

"I do not think we can sit here as members with this level of criticism without some kind of reaction to it."