Senior managers at Haringey council in North London are “preparing for the worst” today when ministers receive a three-week review of the authority’s performance in the case of Baby P.

Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, is expected to take action within hours.

Sources at the council say they believe that Sharon Shoesmith, head of children’s services, and several of her management colleagues will be replaced immediately for the failure to stop the brutal killing of the 17-month-old boy despite 60 appointments and meetings between her staff and other children’s services.

Lawyers at the council also face criticism in the report, compiled by Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Inspectorate of Constabulary. The review has found that on two occasions the threat of harm to Baby P met the legal threshold for his removal from the home.

Social workers did not seek legal advice on the first occasion in December 2006. But on the second, on July 25 last year and just weeks before his death on August 3, they went to the legal department with their evidence to be told by lawyers that the legal threshold for initiating court proceedings had not been met. At the first interim hearing the court does not need to be satisfied “beyond reasonable doubt” that the allegations of harm are true, only that there is “reasonable cause to believe” that the child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. The bruising seen by doctors on those two occasions would have been sufficient.

Ms Shoesmith has refused to accept any criticism of her staff, who overruled police when they sought to have the boy removed before his death.She said that a serious case review showed her that services had “worked effectively” and that she had no reason to apologise. She did apologise later. But there are concerns that a summary published last month did not represent fully the review’s findings.

The full serious case review has had only limited circulation. But one source who has read it said: “Sharon Shoesmith’s defence of her team was totally unjustified. If I had been her, I would have said, ‘I’m desperately, desperately sorry — mistakes were made’.”

The executive summary of the case review was made public. But sources who have seen the full report say the summary is “a whitewash”. It is understood that Mr Balls has asked Lord Laming to include in an investigation that he is conducting a consideration of whether all serious case reviews should be made public. Lord Laming, who chaired the Victoria Climbié inquiry, has been asked to investigate whether social workers are carrying out his recommendations for protecting vulnerable children.

Police are also braced for changes in their child protection work after the review. Senior officers have been told that if they are not happy with decisions made by social workers they must challenge them far more robustly.

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