 A report into Caleb's death raised serious failings |
The death of baby Caleb Ness has prompted Edinburgh councillors to demand probes into child protection cases across the country. Caleb, who was just 11 weeks old, was killed by his brain-damaged father shortly after leaving hospital.
Edinburgh City Council has completed an internal re-examination of the handling of more than 300 children on its child protection register.
It now wants similar reviews to be carried out across Scotland each year.
Caleb, who was on the "at-risk" register, was shaken to death by his father Alexander.
An independent inquiry into Edinburgh's child protection services last year found fault "at almost every level in every agency" involved. It concluded that Caleb's death was "avoidable" and that "neither parent should have had unsupervised care" of the baby.
The report prompted the resignation of social work director Les McEwan.
The internal audit has now found that only 85% of the 319 children on the register had a child protection plan and just 81% had a chronological history in their case files.
The authority has pledged to improve procedures for the monitoring of all children on the child protection register, carry out an annual internal audit of the council's child protection practices and appoint 11 extra administration staff.
Case assessment
It is also considering setting up an internal social work inspectorate, in the absence of any national body.
An external team has begun an in-depth case assessment of children on the register and the council is also undergoing a review of the department's staff structure.
The findings of the internal audit were discussed at a meeting of the council and a further report entitled, Protecting Children in Edinburgh, will be published in March.
Kingsley Thomas, Edinburgh City Council's executive member for social work, said: "The audit has highlighted some areas where improvement is needed, but the results do appear to indicate higher levels of protection in Edinburgh than is the national average.
"We will continue to improve our systems and new procedures are being implemented."
He said the council had put extra money into recruiting, retaining and training staff and was spending �14m on a new social work IT system.
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A council audit has highlighted some areas where improvement is needed 
