Children living in unsafe conditions with neglectful parents were left for too long without intervention from a health agency, a watchdog has found.

Moray Community Planning Partnership has been ordered to implement improvements after the probe by the Care Inspectorate found several "key weaknesses" in its service.

The watchdog said in a report release on Thursday that in a quarter of cases it reviewed, the partnership's "initial response to child protection concerns" were judged to be weak.

It found "concerning degree of variability and inconsistency" between services in sharing concerns about children experiencing "neglectful parenting or emotional harm".

The partnership, made up of Moray Council, NHS Grampian, Police Scotland, the Moray Integrated Joint Board and Third Sector Interface Moray, said it accepted all of the inspector's findings.

In its findings, the Care Inspectorate wrote: "We assessed the initial response to child protection concerns as weak in a quarter of relevant records reviewed.

"Children experiencing neglectful parenting or emotional harm were living in situations detrimental to their safety and well-being for too long before decisive action was being taken.

"Incidents were assessed on an individual basis without sufficient consideration given to the accumulation of concerns over time and potential or likely risks to the child.

"The circumstances of some children only improved when their situation reached crisis and more decisive action was taken."

The watchdog found recent changes to ways of working had "exacerbated the problem", with social workers experiencing "difficulties obtaining information from police officers to help inform risk assessments".

Across nine key indicators of performance, inspectors rated five as adequate and four as weak.

Inspectors said collaborative leadership and strategic planning were also areas of weakness in the service, but found that children at "immediate risk of significant harm" were being adequately protected.

Karen Reid, chief executive of the inspectorate, said: "This inspection has identified important areas which need to improve and we expect to see changes put in place quickly.

"Leaders were not directing change effectively or sufficiently holding themselves or others to account where progress was slow.

"Collaborative approaches to jointly improve outcomes for children and young people were not well developed, and we also noted there was an urgent need to strengthen challenge and scrutiny to make the necessary changes."

She added: "Chief officers have taken immediate action to address areas of weakness and the Care Inspectorate will work with partners in Moray to support improvements.

"The partnership will require considerable ongoing support and challenge to address these findings."

Chairman of the partnership board, councillor Allan Wright, said: "We accept the findings in this report and have been hard at work since the inspection addressing the issues and challenges that have been raised.

"I am confident the partnership is on the right track. The single most important fact is that the inspection found that no children were at risk.

"Whilst we are not complacent about the shortcomings identified, the fact that our children and young people are safe provides me with some assurance and confidence in our care provision."