A report by the public accounts committee concludes that progress to tackle poorly performing services for children at risk of harm has been too slow.
Six years on from Professor Eileen Munro's child protection review, which recommended a raft of improvements, just 23 per cent of child protection services are considered to be "good" by Ofsted, the committee found.
"By no standards can this be seen as an improvement," their report adds.
Among its most damning comments is that they do not believe the Department for Education "has a credible plan to improve the system by 2020" and found that "it still has no evidence of what works".
Ministers are being called on by the committee to "set out detailed plans, including a timetable and resources for how it will work with local authorities to transform services" by the end of March 2017.
These plans should also include details of how good practice will be shared and how ministers will work with Ofsted to "better intervene to prevent problems identified locally from escalating".
The committee is also concerned about the lack of progress to address a key recommendation of Munro that councils should work harder to recruit and retain experienced social workers, who should be deployed on the frontline to better supervise junior practitioners.
"Despite some excellent practice, there is a problem with the competency and capability of too many social workers, and not enough good people to help improve services faster," says the committee's report.
Labour MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the committee, said: "Government complacency over improving children's services must end now.
"It is completely unacceptable that, six years after the launch of a major review of child protection services, so little progress has been made."
She also called on ministers to improve their data collection so that poorly performing councils can be tackled more swiftly.
Appearing before the committee last month, the DfE's permanent secretary Jonathan Slater said progress was being made to develop an early warning system to identify councils where child protection standards are slipping.
This will cover information such as caseloads, use of agency social workers and staff turnover.
Ofsted, which was last year told by the DfE to slash its budget by a quarter over the next four years, also needs to be "properly resourced" so it can carry out more regular inspections, says Hillier.
She added: "Ofsted's chief inspector last year told the public accounts committee he would be happy to inspect children's services more regularly, so why has the government not taken this up?"
Other recommendations include tackling local variations in thresholds for support and spending. The committee found that "there is no relationship between the quality of services, as assessed by Ofsted, and the amount spent by local authorities".
In October, parliamentary spending watchdog the National Audit Office published a similarly critical report of failures by the DfE efforts to improve child protection services.
The committee report also echoes concerns raised by the NAO around flaws by the DfE in dealing with "a clear conflict of interest" around the recruitment of chief social worker Isabelle Trowler in 2013.
Prior to her appointment, she was a director and shareholder in social work company Morning Lane Associates, which has since won £2.9m of DfE contracts.
"With billions of taxpayers' money being spent each year on contracts with the private sector, it is vital that the taxpayer and parliament is clear about potential conflict of interests," says the report.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
