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Underspending on children's services in Brent did not contribute specifically to the failures in the handling of Victoria Climbie's case, according to the council's solicitor, writes Sally Gillen.

The mishandling of Victoria's case was instead attributed by Joy Akoye to a series of professional misjudgements made by a number of individuals, leading to "serious shortcomings" in the service that Brent had provided for Victoria.

Suspended intake and duty manager Edward Armstrong, who told the inquiry that he did not receive a referral on 18 June from the council's one-stop shop describing cuts and bruises on Victoria, was singled out by Akoye for making professional errors. Aspects of his evidence were called into question.

Akoye said: "The borough simply cannot accept Mr Armstrong's evidence that he neither received nor processed the 18 June referral, but dealt instead with a significantly less serious one dated 21 June from a member of his team he cannot recall and a source he cannot recall."

Armstrong's claims that the duty team had been dealing with a huge backlog were also dismissed by Akoye. She said: "We do not accept the duty team was as chaotic as Mr Armstrong painted it. If it was he must bear a substantial measure of management responsibility for that."

Akoye also defended Brent against criticisms by Dr Ruby Schwartz, the consultant paediatrician at Central Middlesex Hospital, who said she had been stunned by the social work approach to her diagnosis of scabies. It was surprising and naive for Schwartz to expect that social workers should have questioned her medical opinion, given that she was well-respected and trusted by Brent, said Akoye.

It was not difficult to see why Michelle Hines, the senior social worker who lifted police protection from Victoria after being informed that her injuries were not non-accidental, had felt unable to question a senior doctor.

But Akoye added that Hines's removal of police protection without interviewing Victoria and Marie-Therese Kouao was "without doubt a failure of good practice".

Staffing issues such as reliance on agency staff, lack of induction or training and inadequate supervision were, along with underspending, not identified by Brent as key to the mistakes made because all the workers involved in the case were permanent experienced staff.