STAFF working for Bolton Council's social services department are celebrating today after scoring highly in an independent survey.

The Department of Health's annual poll of England's 150 social service departments credited Bolton Council with providing stable placements for foster children and for meeting its targets for reviewing child protection cases.

Bolton reviewed 100 per cent of its "at risk" children cases, beating Rochdale, 99, Tameside, 92, Wigan, 87, Stockport, 86, and Manchester, 81.

It also rated highly for inspecting children's homes.

The league tables published today showed Liverpool in bottom place.

Yet although there were no areas of concern for Bolton, with 80 per cent of services rated between acceptable and very good, the town's social services department was found lagging behind many of its nine Greater Manchester counterparts in the percentage of young people leaving care with at least one GCSE or GNVQ.

In Bolton 36 per cent leave at the age of 16 with at least one qualification. Bury fared better with 52 per cent with Wigan achieving 54 per cent.

Only Rochdale, 35, Manchester, 18, and Oldham, nine, fared worse.

Adults' services in the Borough, however, were rated as ranging from acceptable to very good.

The council scored particularly well in providing services, including home care, to older people and to people with mental health problems to help them to remain at home.

Areas picked out for closer scrutiny included the availability of single rooms in residential care homes and the high number of older people admitted into residential care.

Cllr Cliff Morris, cabinet member for social services and health, said: "The audit results are pleasing in that they show that our drive to improve the quality of our services is paying off.

"We will continue to develop our services for adults to make sure that people are given a range of options, including residential care."