Addressing the core issues behind failings in children's services

The recent deaths of children in Haringey and Birmingham suggest that new arrangements are no better than those that existed before the tragic death of Victoria Climbie, which prompted New Labour's reforms of children's services.

Working out what is cheap political point-scoring and what is informed and experiential thinking can be difficult. It is here that a longer view is absolutely critical. The death of Victoria Climbie was not some exceptional happening but one more in a sequence of tragic children's deaths stretching back almost to the formation of local authority children's departments in 1948.

For me, the name of Maria Colwell will be forever etched in my mind. She died in 1973 and I had just started my first job as a social work assistant. The similarities between her death and cases such as Victoria Climbie and Baby Peter are startling. At the heart of all these tragic deaths are a catalogue of errors, which usually involve some breakdown in communication and lack of clarity about responsibility. Following the inquiry into her death, the relevant government department produced a report, Working Together for Children and Their Families. It called for much of the collaborative activity that has only now been put on a statutory footing.

Effective collaboration rests on a precarious equilibrium. Institutional dictate is just one factor in the equation. The others are professional priorities and obligations, and personal relationships. Each of these can override the others — for good and for bad. Only when all three are working positively is the best professional practice likely to emerge. It is worth thinking about that, rather than further structural upheaval. For, as Socrates once said, if you want to give the illusion of progress, reorganise.

Howard Williamson, professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan