Ministers on defensive | Statement from Baby P's father

Social care inspectors investigated a whistleblower’s warning that children were at risk in Haringey and cleared the council of any wrongdoing five months before the death of Baby P.

The Commission of Social Care Inspection said yesterday that inspectors had visited the department on March 12, 2007, to study complaints by Nevres Kemal, a former social worker in Haringey, that statutory procedures were not being followed and children were at risk.

At the meeting, inspectors said they were satisfied that the issues raised had been properly dealt with. The disclosure poses questions about the oversight system for children’s social services and has ignited a political row as the Conservatives accused the Government of “bureaucratic buck-passing”.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Children’s Secretary, said: “The public are tired of hearing that correct procedures have been followed when a child died in agony. Ministers were told six months before Baby P’s death that there were profound problems in Haringey’s children services department.

“Yet all that appears to have happened is the sacking and gagging of the whistleblower and bureaucratic buck-passing in Whitehall. We need a proper explanation of what steps were taken at the highest level to investigate the concerns raised.”

On February 16 last year, Ms Kemal’s solicitor wrote to Patricia Hewitt, then Health Secretary, and to three other MPs calling for a public inquiry into allegations of child sex abuse. The Department of Health passed the letter onto the Department for Education and Skills who in turn passed the complaint to the commission.

Ms Kemal’s lawyer, Lawrence Davies, said that her concerns had been “pushed from pillar to post” and suggested Baby P’s death might have been averted had it been acted upon.

Baby P died in August 2007 from multiple injuries six months after the solicitor’s letter was sent.

Yesterday the Government fiercely denied that it had dealt inappropriately with Ms Kemal’s concerns. Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, said: “It was clear that the correct procedures said this should be given to the inspector who has the responsibility to act. They have acted by having a meeting with Haringey and they were satisfied in this case. Things were done properly.”

But he added: “There is a wider issue which is raised by the serious case review, which is whether Haringey have acted properly in the case. That is being investigated by the inspectors. I will wait for their report.”

Mr Balls’s department said that it was confident that “proper procedures had been followed”.

During a trip to New York yesterday, the Prime Minister said: “I am determined to do everything in my power to make sure that this does not happen again.”

David Cameron said that it was an absolutely tragic case of a baby having “fallen through the cracks of a bureaucratic system”. The Conservative leader said: “If letters are sent with both Haringey and children in the same sentence, that should have been a wake-up call. Everyone is saying that procedures were followed rather than actually asking who was responsible and why didn’t they act.”

Their comments came as a picture of Baby P, aged about 1, was released. Social services were monitoring him by then because he had been taken several times by his mother to see his GP.

Two men were found guilty this week of causing or allowing the death of a child. Baby P’s mother had earlier admitted the same charge. They will be sentenced next month.

It has also been disclosed that more than 80 per cent of children who are killed or seriously injured as a result of abuse do not feature on the national child protection register. The figures, obtained by The Guardian from unpublished research, show that 33 of the 189 children whose death or serious injury prompted a local authority serious case review between 2005 and 2007 were on the register.

In Haringey residents gathered outside the council’s headquarters and shouted for the sacking of Sharon Shoesmith, head of children’s services.

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