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Would a different structure for social services have saved Victoria Climbie? Would it save any of the other 80 or so children who die each year at the hands of their carers?

Those questions should be foremost in the minds of health secretary Alan Milburn and his civil servants working on the green paper which will be the government's response to Lord Laming's inquiry into Victoria's death.

Lord Laming believes that Victoria was not only failed by inadequate structures but by "a widespread organisational malaise". In his report he says: "It is not just structures that are the problem, but the skills of the staff who work in themÉthe greatest failure rests with the managers and senior members of the authorities whose task it was to ensure that services for children, like Victoria, were properly financed, staffed, and able to deliver good quality support to children and families."

It is surprising, then, that Laming recommends major structural reform of child protection. At the top he wants to see the establishment of a children and families board, chaired by a cabinet minister and serviced by a national agency for children and families and supported by regional offices. No one can dispute that giving higher political priority to child protection is a good idea. But as David Behan, president of the Association of Directors of Social Services points out, a new national agency with a regional framework would add another layer of bureaucracy.

Laming also recommends reform of local child protection. He wants a children and families committee of elected members to be set up in every local authority. He also wants area child protection committees (ACPCs) to be replaced by management boards for services to children and families. These would be chaired by the local authority chief executive. Significantly, given speculation about hiving off child protection into a separate nationally co-ordinated agency, he believes that this should remain the responsibility of individual councils (see panel).

Despite having reservations about the details, Behan believes there are many positive aspects to Laming's proposals. He says: "Seeing child protection as part of mainstream services for children in need and the recommendations for co-ordinating them at a local level are positive. Looking to lodge accountability more clearly and the joining up of national and local accountabilities is a strong feature of the report. The principles behind what he is recommending have the potential to transform the way we deliver our services."

Julia Ross, executive director for health and social care in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, says Laming's emphasis on focusing accountability for individual casework up the line signals a change in the way social work is managed.

"I've always felt I'm accountable for managing the framework," she says. "Laming is quite clear that social work managers should get back in touch with the day-to-day work. I'll be thinking about getting closer to individual cases and having more of a feel of what is happening on the front line. It's more akin to the kind of clinical overview which occurs in health."

The recommendations lack detail and leave many questions unanswered. Behan says having a new board with responsibility for children and family services and lodging child protection within it may be welcomed. But there will still be a need for groups to work on specific tasks, such as child protection procedures and training plans. It is hardly realistic to expect a local authority chief executive to have much detailed knowledge of child protection. And, in larger authorities with several health trusts, police divisions and housing authorities, there will be problems with the composition of management boards.

Laming does not make clear either whether responsibility for co-ordinating child protection should be on a statutory footing as has been canvassed by the Association of Directors of Social Services, children's charity NSPCC and the joint inspectorate report Safeguarding Children published last autumn. The argument runs that making ACPCs statutory bodies will mean partner agencies give higher priority to child protection. At the moment ACPCs' authority comes from their member agencies and depends on the level of seniority of the representatives. Too often they are dominated by social services, and representatives from other agencies are relatively junior.


NSPCC policy adviser Rhian Stone says it is vital that ACPCs - or whatever succeeds them - are given teeth and resources. She says: "Stronger mechanisms are needed to ensure that professionals work together and are held accountable for their actions, whatever their individual perspectives and priorities. The NSPCC believes this can be done through powerful local bodies with workers on the ground being brought together in multi-agency teams. At the moment ACPCs are variable because they aren't statutory and don't have adequate resources."

But no one must lose sight of the context in which social workers operate. David Berridge, professor of child and family welfare at Luton University, says: "You can't look at events [like the death of Victoria Climbie] without realising that social work is chronically undervalued and underfunded and that the government hardly ever speaks positively about social workers. The fundamental point is not about structure but about the quality of staff management."

Eileen Munro, lecturer in social policy at the London School of Economics, fears that restructuring will further undermine morale. "Keeping staff is the key point," she says. "We've been re-organising social services since 1974. There's no evidence that it makes any substantial difference."

She adds: "Audit Commission research shows that social workers will start protecting children when they themselves feel protected. They are not being helped with those aspects of the job that are really challenging."

Improving practice must start with supporting front-line staff. One child protection worker from a north London team says: "Most of my work is about writing reports for committees and telling people that we can't do anything to help them. I came into this job because I wanted to do something to help vulnerable children. I often ask myself whether I'm really doing that."

Laming's proposals

• National children and families board chaired by a Cabinet member and serviced by a national children and families agency.  
• Local authority chief executives  to chair new management boards for services to children and   families made up of chief or very senior officers from the police, health, education, housing, probation services and social services. The boards will undertake work now carried out by area child protection committees. 
• Management boards will report to  local children and families committees of elected members. The committees will be responsible for ensuring inter-agency co-ordination of children's services. 
• Management boards for children and families to appoint a director to take responsibility for ensuring effective inter-agency arrangements and for advising the management board on the development of services to meet local need.  
• Each management board to establish ways of assessing the needs of children in their area, and in particular children who may be at risk of deliberate harm. 
• The budget for supporting vulnerable children contributed by each of the key agencies to be identified by the management board so that staff and resources can be used flexibly and effectively.