WAS there not a typical reaction from county councillors and officials to the Audit Commission's blistering criticism of Lancashire Social Services, which was accused of failing to allocate social workers to at-risk children, letting cases reach crisis point before acting and dumping people in institutions?

These charges came after this department's dreadful failings were exposed twice over when East Lancashire babies Levi Rose and Jack Shackleton were killed by cruel parents after Social Services had been warned about their families.

Yet the reply to them is to claim they are flawed.

We find County Council leader John West saying the report is contradictory.

Social Services chairman Doreen Pollitt is upset by its tone.

And director, Pauline Oliver, says she will stay put as, according to her, the buck does not stop at her desk because responsibility for her department's problems had to be shared from top to bottom.

But if this accords with a pattern that the Audit Commission had already noted - of an organisation full of defensiveness, distrust and refusal to listen to criticism - it is a response that will just not do. Not when the lives and safety of children are at risk.

For if, as the defenders of this deeply disquieting department suggest, the Audit Commission has got it wrong in Lancashire's case, despite all its extensive experience of examining social services operations in scores of other councils, then let them prove it.

It is suggested by the Conservatives' social service spokesman that consultants should be called in to sort out the mess.

Such a step needs to be taken to promptly end the dispute over whether there is a mess - and dispose of it if one is found.

Given the confidence of the ruling Labour group in themselves and their officers, what have they to fear from such a move - even if it seems incredible that they can maintain there is no great mess when the deaths of two little babies stain its casebook and such a damning official report follows afterwards?

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