Sweeping changes in the way Ofsted regulates child protection services across England will be demanded by MPs in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the tragedy of Baby P.

After a two-hour cross-examination of Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s chief inspector, members of the Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee said that they were not convinced that the current inspection regime would stop another death in similar circumstances.

Baby P died of his injuries at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and a lodger, despite 60 separate appointments with Haringey social workers. After the court case, inspectors called in by the Government found numerous serious failings in the work of Haringey children’s services. Only a year earlier, Ofsted had given the department top marks. After the hearing, Barry Sheerman, the committee’s chairman, said that Ms Gilbert’s answers had not reassured him that Ofsted, the schools inspection body, was up to the job of assessing children’s social work. Ofsted took over inspecting children’s services in April 2007.

“This session made me less confident rather than more confident that there isn’t going to be another Haringey waiting,” Mr Sheerman said.

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Fiona Mactaggart, Labour MP for Slough and member of the committee, said that she did not want to pre-empt the committee’s inquiry into Ofsted. “But I think you could see from watching the session that there was clear concern that at the highest level of Ofsted there is not the kind of understanding of child protection and children in care that you would like in the inspection process,” she said.

MPs made clear they would call for changes in the regime of interim assessments made in between formal three-year inspections of children’s services. Under such an exercise, Haringey received top marks.

A report from the committee into Ofsted due next year is likely to say that these interim assessments are not only of limited use but potentially dangerous, because they give local authorities a false sense of security about their work. They are largely a paper exercise, based on self-assessment by senior council staff.

Ms Gilbert has defended her inspectors, saying that the data they used provided by Haringey was false. MPs were also horrified to discover from her that all evidence used in that assessment had been destroyed after three months, in keeping with Ofsted rules. That meant that she did not know who had given inspectors the false information, or even their point of contact at the local authority.

“I think it is safe to say the committee was not very pleased about that and will recommend a different approach in future,” one MP said.

In her evidence, Ms Gilbert confirmed a report in The Times that 282 children died of neglect, abuse or in the care system between April 2007 and August 2008.

Of that total, 72 died in accidents, stabbings or shootings while in foster or residential care, while the remaining 210 died of abuse or neglect at the hands of their families.

It means that 12 children are killed by some form of abuse each month, far higher than previous figures, which puts the average at four a month, suggest. MPs called them “the most horrific figures ever brought into the public domain”.

Ms Gilbert said that under changes to be made in the inspection of social care, a whistle-blower “hotline” for social workers will be launched by Ofsted to try to prevent a repeat of the Baby P tragedy. She told MPs that it would allow frontline staff to raise concerns about practices and standards that could be undermining child safety.

A whistle-blower at Haringey Council, who disclosed a failure to carry out proper medical checks on children who may have been abused, went unheeded. Nevres Kemal, a child protection officer at Haringey who raised the alarm, was subsequently suspended and then left.

Ms Gilbert said that the hotline would be one of a number of changes to inspections of children’s services. “We want to make it easier for front-line staff to tell us when things are going wrong,” she told MPs.

Other changes include an annual spot-check in every local authority and inspections on safeguarding children in care.

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