Detective superintendent Chris Bourlet, the Metropolitan Police's deputy head of child protection, said police involvement on the bodies could be affected by tension over where responsibility for child protection rests.
He told a conference last week that it had not yet been decided in London whether police representatives should come from the centralised child protection team or the local borough forces, adding that it would be a difficult issue for many forces to grapple with.
"The preferred option is that people on safeguarding boards should be senior enough to commit resources and decide policy," he told Children Now. "But there are only four chief superintendents and three superintendents in the Met's child protection command, so going to all 32 London boroughs would make it difficult to do on a regular basis."
But if the Met decided to send staff from local forces - who were not in charge of policy - they would have one chief superintendent and two superintendents at their disposal.
"We are entering into discussions with all the boroughs as they work out how their trusts should be organised. Decisions have yet to be made.
I am concerned about how local safeguarding children boards will hold the police to account when it is the chief constable who reports to the Home Office."
Bourlet also raised the possibility of a conflict of accountability between the boards and the Met commissioner: "That will be an interesting debate. If there is a problem, which accountability will prove more important?"
Bourlet said the Met was making great strides in improving its techniques on child protection. While there were previously 27 separate murder teams investigating interfamilial child homicides in the capital, now there were two dedicated units looking solely at child murders.
