Social workers in Haringey are still failing to identify and protect children in danger of abuse from their families, according to a damning report into their work published yesterday.

It listed dozens of failings in the children’s services department, raising concerns that many other children like Baby P may be at risk across the borough today.

The joint area review, conducted by Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary over the past three weeks, said that services were inadequate and required urgent attention.

Child protection plans, which replaced the at-risk register and set out what steps should be taken to safeguard a child, were generally poor. Although social workers usually visited families regularly and on time, there was a lack of clarity about what they should be doing to make sure that children were safe.

Inappropriate use was frequently made of family members or friends in the borough to look after children at risk while their parents were assessed.

In relation to the Baby P case, the report said it was unacceptable that neither social workers nor the police realised that there were two men living in Baby P’s home – his mother’s new boyfriend and a lodger, Jason Owen. The two men were found guilty of causing or allowing his death, a charge to which Baby P’s mother also pleaded guilty.

The report also criticised the serious case review into what went wrong in the case of Baby P, calling it inadequate. Sharon Shoesmith, the head of children’s services who was removed from her post yesterday, had led the review, even though it was supposed to be independent. Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, has ordered that the review be redone.

The report said that there was “insufficient strategic leadership and management” of the safeguarding of children and young people by the council. Managers were failing to ensure full compliance with requirements introduced after the death of Victoria Climbié in the borough eight years ago.

David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, whose constituency includes Haringey, called the report “deeply troubling”, saying: “We expected, the people of Tottenham expected, that these agencies would learn the lessons of the past and implement the changes necessary to safeguard our children.

“Sadly the changes did not go far enough. ‘Poor’, ‘inadequate’ and ‘disturbing’ are words that are littered throughout this report. That description of services is unacceptable.”

The report was also scathing about the work of the safeguarding children boards. These were set up after the death of Victoria Climbié to challenge and monitor all the agencies that work with at-risk children and make sure that they are communicating their concerns and actions properly with one another.

The collection of data was also condemned as unreliable. Performance indicators used focused on the timeliness of initial and core assessments. Cases were counted as “closed” even though there was no documenta-tion showing this to be true. Cases involving several children in one family showed up as one case, not separately, as recommended. That means social workers’ workloads were heavier than indicated.

The report also cast doubt on whether a new framework for assessing the needs of children at risk was working properly. The common assessment framework is supposed to make it more straightforward to detect risks and take action. But the report found that it was not “universally understood or effectively implemented” by staff, despite training.

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