Sharon Shoesmith, the head of children’s services at Haringey Council, rejected calls yesterday for her resignation, saying that her department had “worked effectively” in the case of Baby P.

“The child was killed by members of his own family, not by anyone who works for [social services],” she said. “The sad fact is you cannot stop people who are determined to kill children.”

However, ministers threatened last night to initiate an inquiry as the local authority made clear that no one would lose their job.

The decision to return Baby P to his family against the wishes of police carried alarming parallels to the death of Victoria Climbié in the same London borough eight years earlier. Those failings prompted a national inquiry into social workers’ monitoring of children.

Managers at Haringey Council tried to explain how Baby P had died of abuse injuries, despite receiving an average of two visits a week from health and social workers, and heavy police involvement. Social workers held 60 appointments about the child in the last nine months of his life.

Two social workers and a lawyer have received written warnings. Sabah Al-Zayyat, a consultant paediatrician at St Ann’s Hospital in Tottenham, has not had her contract renewed but is appealing against the decision.

In the Climbié case no one in any senior position lost their job. Lisa Arthurworrey, a junior social worker, was the only person sacked, and was recently cleared to practise again.

Ministers are clearly uneasy about what has gone on at Haringey. Last night they warned Ms Shoesmith that an independent inquiry specifically focusing on the council was being considered.

Concerns include a perceived conflict of interest over Ms Shoesmith chairing the serious case review into the death, instead of appointing someone from outside.

The case is a catalogue of missed opportunities and naivety on the part of social workers who were deceived by a mother desperate to explain her son’s injuries. Baby P had been on the at-risk register for nine months at the time of his death in August last year.

As in previous cases of child abuse, social workers, including his case worker Maria Ward, appeared to believe the mother’s version of events about unexplained injuries to the boy, and were taken in by her apparent co-operation with staff who visited her.

Two days before Baby P’s death, when a paediatrician failed to spot that he had a broken back and eight broken ribs, social workers even agreed to a request from the mother to halt visits for a month so that the family could go “on holiday”.

At a meeting with all the services in contact with the family, a senior police officer had urged social workers not to return the child to the family home. Social workers instead produced a “care plan” consisting of regular visits from social workers and help with childcare from a family friend.

Yesterday Ms Shoesmith declined to comment on that meeting, saying only that everyone had signed up to the plan.

Haringey is not alone in struggling to deal with the problem of protecting children. Last week a review was published into the case of a two-year-old child who died of neglect above a pub in Sheffield . In Birmingham a child starved to death in the summer .

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