BLACKPOOL is among the 14 worst-performing social services departments in the country -- and has been placed in the "investigate urgently" band for some of its elderly and child care provisions.

New information from the Department of Health rated the resort's social services department 136th out of 150 authorities.

And under new measures, poor performing social services departments could be subject to a monitored action plan for improvement, or even be run by another, top performing, council.

Areas marked by the Department of Health for urgent investigation at Blackpool were admissions of supported residents aged 65-plus to residential/nursing care and the percentage of people receiving a statement of their needs.

In children's services, there were four areas rated as needing urgent investigation -- stability of placements for children looked after, long term stability of children looked after, health of children looked after and reviews of child protection cases.

Blackpool Social Services director Steve Pullan said the authority's low score could be due to the fact that it did not return a certain set of statistics in time for inclusion in this year's performance assessment framework.

"The situation in which we find ourselves is the result of overwork, computer problems and perhaps naivety in dealing with the bureaucracy," he said. "No one is to be blamed."

But Blackpool social service's poor performance was greeted with concern by others.

Steven Bate, chairman of Blackpool Liberal Democrats, said: "We were told last year that the Government instructed Blackpool Social Services to save money by sacking experienced staff and closing care homes. Now they want to blame them for doing as they were told. The council has admitted services are bad. It does need investigating. Is it poor local management or lack of Government funding?"

Blackpool Tory leader Peter Callow said that the council must do better. "I'm not blaming individual members of staff. We need a good hard look at the administration of the Social Services department.

"It was only a few months ago that we had a big reorganisation of Blackpool Council and three super directors were created. The Social Services director was given even more responsibility for other departments. We fought against the creation of super directors.

"We should be concentrating on getting our social services vastly improved. Something has gone very wrong and it must be corrected."

Action for poor performers, outlined by Health Secretary Alan Milburn, could include:

The adoption of a monitored improvement action plan agreed by the Social Services Inspectorate chief inspector.

Further intervention for councils on "special measures" who fail to improve services.

The possibility of using external expertise to turn around performance where social services are consistently failing.

The possibility of top performing councils taking over responsibility for running the worst performers.

There were also plans to reward strong social services departments.