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A national standards-setting body to monitor the performance of child protection services was proposed last week at the fourth seminar of phase two of the Victoria Climbie Inquiry.

John Ransford, head of education and social policy at the Local Government Association, said such a body would do away with the need for public inquiries into child deaths.

The proposed body would set and monitor standards. Agencies would explicitly contract with the new body, agreeing to deliver on the standards for the local area. "That would mean that agencies then have to deliver the resources - which is the key point to make it work," said Ransford. The local authority chief executive would be the right person to ensure it was done in the way the locality wanted.

The group of experts favoured such a body over a central agency running child protection services.

Commenting on the impact of structural change, June Thoburn, professor of social work at the University of East Anglia, said: "On the whole, people do not leave because they are underpaid or overworked. They leave because they keep being moved around, they keep losing their relationships."

Former chief social services inspector Sir William Utting warned that child protection must not be split off from wider services. "Child protection services are an integral part of child welfare services generally and no system that separates them is going to operate successfully." Such services also need to be open to public scrutiny and accountable to directly elected representatives, he said.

Children's charity the NSPCC proposed new multi-disciplinary teams, but others warned that that could lead to the blurring of roles between police officers and social workers, and yet more bureaucratic hurdles.

Experts agreed that strengthening area child protection committees could help improve closer working between agencies and could be one way to help prevent a repeat of the catastrophic agency failings in Victoria's case.

NSPCC policy adviser Rhian Stone said ACPCs lacked teeth and needed to be put on a statutory footing.

Rob Hutchinson, chairperson of the Association of Directors of Social Services children and families committee, suggested local authority chief executives be made responsible for their local ACPC in order to make the committee accountable to local politicians. But he said there also had to be a way of ensuring health agencies felt equally responsible.