HOLIDAY activities organised by the council for youngsters in York have been praised by Government inspectors.

City of York Council has been highlighted by Ofsted for its School's Out holiday programme, which helps more than 50,000 children in the city.

The news comes as Ofsted has published a report today on the services provided by local authorities for children and young people in England called Narrowing The Gap: The Inspection Of Children's Services.

The report reveals that nationally the most vulnerable and underachieving children and young people continue to be let down.

The overall picture is an improving one, with children's services in 107 out of the 139 authorities covered by the report making a good contribution towards delivering better outcomes for children and young people.

However, the biggest challenge continues to be narrowing the gap in opportunities and outcomes between the majority of children and young people and those that are vulnerable or underachieving.

A second significant theme is that strong partnerships between local authorities and other providers are of pivotal importance in order to secure the level of support and style of service delivery that will improve the achievements of children and young people.

Patrick Scott, director of learning, culture and children's services at City of York Council said: "All sorts of different providers are now offering a fabulous range of holiday activities in places all over the city as part of the School's Out programme.

"The number of attendances has grown beyond all our expectations. Looking ahead, we are hoping to develop a new specialist programme of after-school activities for young people with particular gifts and talents as well as a scheme to catch children young, whilst they are still in primary school, and get them thinking about whether they might eventually go on to university. It all helps to make learning fun."

The report found that most local authorities are making a good contribution towards delivering better outcomes for the majority of children and young people.

However, the report also finds that, for a significant minority, provision is not good enough and authorities need to do more to redress this inequity.

Miriam Rosen, Ofsted's director of education, said: "Councils and their partners should ensure that services are planned and delivered in an integrated way, and focus on ensuring that individual children and young people make progress.

"They should secure a balance between sustaining improvements to universal services, while investing in prevention and targeting resources on acute areas of need."