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Met's step is a start

The Victoria Climbié Inquiry heard disturbing revelations about police child protection work: poor or non-existent training, low or even derided status within the police service, recruitment problems, and lack of investment.

At least the Metropolitan Police are not waiting for the inquiry report before taking action, and there is evidence that other forces are watching reforms in London with interest.

One of the most positive initiatives to come out of the Met since the inquiry began is the establishment this week of a multi-agency London Child Protection Committee. We know that the chance of any agency protecting Victoria Climbié became more and more remote each time she moved: information was lost, and poor communication between incompatible bureaucracies was fatal to any chance of purposeful activity to protect her.

Better co-ordination across London will make it harder for those intent on abuse to profit from the public sector’s over-rigid and defensive approach to agency boundaries. Other regions would do well to follow suit.

This London-wide initiative will also help ensure that all agencies can learn from the best. In social services, we have graphic illustration of the fact that best and worst practice sit side by side: consider, for example, that London contains both half of all social services departments awarded three stars by the Department of Health, and nearly a third of all zero-star departments.

Horrific as the revelations about all agencies involved in Victoria’s case have been, we know that the system can and does work well elsewhere.

Proof of a willingness to communicate and learn across agency boundaries is desperately needed if there is to be even the remotest chance of arguing against the creation of a new, national child protection agency. For that argument rests on the need to view and manage services for vulnerable and at risk families as a spectrum. If the new London Child Protection Committee can’t make a difference, that looks more and more like an unachievable, impractical ideal.

Who inspects reviews?

The Victoria Climbié Inquiry has also raised crucial questions about the way in which we monitor the performance of social services departments.

The fact that the department at the centre of the case - Haringey - received a glowing joint review months before Victoria’s death must put the credibility of joint reviews in question. How can a department that spectacularly fails to provide a service to a child at risk be deemed to be doing a good job? Witnesses to the inquiry used the glowing report to explain why they believed Haringey’s children’s services were safe. Is it possible to pull the wool over inspectors’ eyes?

The Department of Health, which commissioned the inquiry, limited Lord Laming’s remit so he could not question the joint review process in detail. So who is going to investigate how inspectors got it so wrong? We must not stop at the limited questions the inquiry is permitted to put to the chief inspector of social services.

If a review system can’t pick up failing or dangerous services, it cannot claim to be a safeguard for service users. It can, of course, still claim to be a check on implementation of government targets and priorities