A TOWN HALL inquiry is to be held into the poor performance of Blackpool social services concerning children -- but not purely because of the recent damning Department of Health report, the leading Labour group say.

Department of Health (DOH) information last month placed the council in the bottom 14 social services departments in the country. Areas of its elderly and children's services were marked for urgent investigation.

Blackpool's social services director Steve Pullan said no one was to blame for the poor results and that a failure to return certain data in time could have affected the council's rating.

Deputy Labour leader Eddie Collett said that scrutiny panels had been set up under the council's new constitution and the DOH results may perhaps have contributed to the children's services coming first under scrutiny. But the inquiry was not a direct result of the DOH report, he said.

But Conservative group leader Peter Callow refuted that and said his party would not be involved in a cover-up. "Of course the inquiry was sparked by those results," he said. "The Tories are not going to be a party to any whitewash or cover-up."

Coun Collett said: "If the service had not received such a bad national report then it may not have been the first thing to come under scrutiny.

"But it did, and it's a very important service and we want it to be right. There are definitely three or four areas within that report that want a real good looking at.

"There's absolutely not going to be a cover-up. The committee has been set up to do these things and the Conservative Party is well represented on it. And it is totally independent of the executive. They will scrutinise what they want to scrutinise."

The inquiry is due to begin on November 22. Details of its timescale and scope were still being decided, but the inquiry could involve calling witnesses.