SOUTH Yorkshire Police still needs “major improvements” to its child protection procedures following the child sex grooming scandal in Rotherham, inspectors said yesterday.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary raised “serious concerns” in September last year about the force’s child protection procedures after investigating the grooming scandal which took place over five years from 2005 to 2010.

The inspectorate has now said that further investigations found signs of progress but also concluded that there was still important work for South Yorkshire Police to do to improve the protection of children.

“It is common knowledge that South Yorkshire Police’s approach to protecting children has been severely lacking,” said Inspector of Constabulary Mike Cunningham.

“We carried out this post-inspection review in order to understand what progress South Yorkshire Police had made since our initial inspection, and we found there were still areas that need major improvements.”

But he said the situation “was not irretrievable.”