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Keeble draws comparisons between a case in her Northampton constituency and the circumstances in which Victoria Climbie was living. In Northampton, two young boys were living in a one-bedroom flat with a man who said he was their father, although there was no proof of his identity. Marie Therese Kouao passed Victoria off as her daughter, and they ended up living in a one-bedroom flat with Kouao's new boyfriend, Carl Manning.

In cases like these, identifying their carer should be a matter of urgency. "The initial problem is of impersonation," says Keeble. "All the documents are genuine but the people carrying them aren't. A lot of housing officers have a good common sense understanding [of child protection] but that's different from being properly trained. They need to be much quicker to spot what's happening with children and make sure there is proper social services involvement and that they know where those children are going. They also need procedures so they can refer on any specific child protection concerns."

Also, the quality of accommodation for children continues to be a major concern. Victoria's initial contact was with Ealing housing department's homeless persons' unit, which placed her and Kouao in a hostel. The hostel was described during the inquiry into her death as "ill-equipped, dirty, cramped and not suitable for a child". Yet, several years after her death, vulnerable children are still being placed in inappropriate temporary accommodation, in some cases in hostels which also house offenders and people with mental health, drug or alcohol problems.

Keeble welcomes the bill's emphasis on joint work between education and social services. "It's fine to have social services and education tied up, and I don't want to minimise the importance of education's involvement. But a lot of the children most at risk will not be at school because they are too young, are kept at home or they are moved around a lot."

Keeble believes the involvement of housing is essential and she is not alone in this view. Children's minister Margaret Hodge and Commission for Social Care Inspection chair Denise Platt agree that the government has failed to adequately address issues around housing. Such high-level support may mean that Keeble's amendment to the Children Bill has every chance of success. The amendment is due to be tabled when the bill reaches the House of Commons, probably in the next few weeks.

Despite the enthusiasm for last-minute changes, many observers were surprised, as well as disappointed, that housing was not firmly tied in as part of the solution in the first place. Homelessness is commonly identified as one of the highest risk factors in child protection issues and many homeless people are parents with children. Additionally, housing is often the first port of call for these families, as it was for Victoria Climbi', or the only contact families have with professionals, so it is vital that housing officers can recognise risks and respond to them.

Frequent moves contribute to the problem. Families are often forced to move several times before they are offered permanent housing, so can easily lose contact with services. The onset of a child protection investigation may prompt families to move abruptly and without notice. So unless housing and social services co-operate effectively, a vulnerable child ends up in a different area where the authorities are unaware of previous problems.

Homelessness charity Shelter believes that children in temporary accommodation are more at risk than those in permanent housing. This is because they are likely to be living in poor or overcrowded conditions where they can become distanced from services. Even if they are in contact with social services, it's quite likely that they will lose that contact at a later stage or they won't be allocated a social worker.

Helen Lewis, Shelter's policy officer, says: "The disappointing thing about Every Child Matters [the green paper that preceded the Children Bill] is that it recognises that children who are badly housed are at risk, but when it comes down to it, partnership working doesn't seem to include housing, apart from basic information sharing. The bill doesn't exclude the possibility that housing can be involved in decision-making but it's an option, rather than a central part."


Consequently, Lewis believes housing is not in people's minds when they talk about child protection. This has left an inconsistency between what's happening in the Children Bill and what has happened in the Homelessness Act 2002 and Supporting People, where housing is recognised as an essential and integral part of multi-agency working.

A report from Shelter last year found that one of the outcomes of poor joint working between health and social services working with homeless families was that children could be threatened with being taken into care.¹ This is because the duty to house people lies with the housing department. Even if they are found to be intentionally homeless they must be provided with temporary accommodation for 28 days. In cases where children are involved, social services departments have powers to assist under section 17 of the Children Act 1989. The problem is that the wording - "powers" rather than "duties" - leaves room for different interpretation. There have been cases when social services have said they are responsible for the children only, not the family as a whole. The children are then taken into care unnecessarily to prevent them becoming homeless while the parents fend for themselves.

To address this, Shelter lobbied for, and got, an amendment in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 which strengthened the powers of social services in such cases. But last year, in three cases heard in the House of Lords, the judges decided that housing responsibilities were for housing authorities, not social services. They ruled that if parents had become intentionally homeless the local authority was within its rights to accommodate the children only. Judge Lord Scott went so far as to say that parents could not use children "as stepping stones" to obtain a greater priority to be re-housed than they would otherwise be entitled.

Lewis says: "This means it will be lawful for authorities to limit their response in these circumstances to 'offering' to take the children into care."

This raises the prospect of homeless families being forced to choose either to be separated or to find potentially unsuitable solutions to their homelessness.

"It is not in the child's interests and goes contrary to the spirit of the Children Bill and its joined-up working, child-centred approach," says Lewis.

Ultimately the answer may be personal, rather than legislative. Housing bodies and social services need to work better together on a personal level - possibly through local decisions to co-locate teams, conduct joint training on child protection and make it a priority to gain a better understanding of the requirements and responsibilities of each professional group.

And this clearly cannot happen soon enough. The response of the National Housing Federation - a powerful national membership organisation for housing associations - when asked to contribute to this article was "child protection is something we don't know about".

¹ H Lewis, Healthy Relationships: Health and Social Services Engagement in Homelessness Strategies and Services, Shelter, 2003