Councils warned not to cherry-pick child protection

Jeanette Pugh, director of the Department for Education’s safeguarding group, told delegates at the National Children and Adult Services Conference that there could be "unintended consequences" if there is a lack of co-ordination in the change process.

"We have to see all of [the reforms] as a whole system – one part has an impact on another," she said.

"We need to be aware and constantly alive to unintended consequences and perverse incentives. I believe it is going to be extremely challenging – some parts of the reforms are going to be easier than others."

"One of the important roles of the Department for Education is to help ensure that [unintended consequences] don’t happen, or at least the risk is mitigated."

Pugh said the process of change will not be the same for each authority as many are in "different places" when it comes to structure and process.

"They won’t all move at the same pace," she said. "They will have to develop their own solutions for their own circumstances and there will be different appetites for risk."

Pugh also said it will be difficult to meet a July 2012 deadline for publication of revised Working Together guidance, currently running to 393 pages, which government has pledged to shorten significantly.

"It is a very challenging timetable," Pugh said. "In order to meet it we are going to have to be in a position to go to formal consultation in the new year. We haven’t got much time to work out a first stab."