Children’s minister Tim Loughton said his decision to publish the reviews would help ensure the lessons of the case were learned, as well as boosting public confidence in the child protection system.
‘Today, everyone can see and understand the events that led to Peter Connelly’s horrific death. The publication of both Peter Connelly reports means that across the country and across the child protection professions, full lessons can be learned and widely applied,’ he said.
‘The publication of these reports is not about apportioning blame but about allowing professionals to understand fully what happens in each case and, most importantly, what needs to change in order to reduce the risk of tragedies happening in the future.’
Loughton added that he wanted the publication of the reviews ‘to bring some form of closure’ to everyone involved in the case.
One of the reviews concluded: ‘In this case, the practice of the majority [of staff involved], both individually and collectively expressed as the culture of safeguarding and child protection at the time, was incompetent and their approach was completely inadequate to meet the challenge presented by the case.’
The review went on: ‘[Baby P’s] horrifying death could and should have been prevented. If the assumptions and approaches described in this report had been applied by the four protecting professions [social workers, doctors, police and lawyers], the developments in the case would have been stopped in its tracks at the first serious incident.’
Responding to the publication of the reviews, Graham Badman, chair of the Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board, said the case had ‘quite properly’ triggered a ‘fundamental reappraisal’ of child protection in the borough.
‘Services in Haringey have improved but the [board] will continue to be vigilant in both auditing and seeking improvement in the management and conduct of all services charged with child protection,’ he said.
The two reviews can be read here and here.
