The government has agreed to release a detailed review into the Baby P case to opposition MPs, a day after claiming it had been told to keep the document confidential.

The children's secretary, Ed Balls, told the Commons yesterday that lawyers had advised him not to make the full serious case review available.

He cited a 2006 ruling by the Information Commissioner in a separate case and voiced concerns that identifying the professionals involved in the case could jeopardise future investigations.

But today Ball's department said five MPs would be allowed to study the full report.

Baby P died in Haringey, north London, in August last year after suffering more than 50 injuries at the hands of his abusive mother, her boyfriend and a lodger - despite repeated visits by the authorities.

A 15-page summary of the serious case review was published at the end of an Old Bailey trial last week.

Now the full report will be made available to the Conservative and Liberal-Democrat children's spokesmen, Michael Gove and David Laws, the Children, Schools and Families select committee chairman, Barry Sheerman, and local MPs Lynne Featherstone and David Lammy.

The MPs will be allowed to read the document on "privy council terms", meaning they must keep its contents secret.

The case was the subject of angry exchanges between David Cameron and Gordon Brown at prime minister questions last week. Since then the government has been keen to establish cross-party consensus on how to tackle the failings highlighted by the tragedy.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "As Ed Balls said in the House of Commons yesterday and in his letter to the opposition children, schools and families spokesmen, he has been keen to find a way to enable them to study the serious case review report but remaining consistent with the principle that these documents remain unpublished and confidential.

"In order to ensure that future serious case reviews are not undermined and achieve their purpose, it remains vital to keep the serious case review confidential."

The shadow children's secretary, Michael Gove, welcomed the move.

"It's important that bureaucracy doesn't get in the way of proper scrutiny," he said.

The three people convicted of involvement in the killing of Baby P are facing "substantial" terms in prison, a judge has warned.
Baby's P's mother, 27, her boyfriend, 32, and their lodger, Jason Owen, 36, will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on December 15 for causing or allowing his death.

Yesterday there was confusion among officials about the bearing the Data Protection Act had on releasing the report.

The House of Commons was told the information commissioner had ruled that the full report could not be released to opposition MPs because of the risk of identifying professionals involved.

But the Information Commissioner's Office said later that it had not been consulted over the case.

From what their children eat to where they sleep and whether their favourite toy is educational enough, parents have never been short of things to agonise about.

But today researchers add "buggy worry" to the list, with a report suggesting front-facing strollers could deprive babies of their first lessons in life by discouraging their parents from talking to them.

The study suggests that old-fashioned buggies, which allow babies to lie down and look up at their parent, give babies the best start in life. A recent wave of hi-tech, adaptable, parent-facing buggies - such as the Bugaboo Cameleon and the Stokke Xplory - can help, but they are often expensive, the researchers say.

The research into the psychological effects of buggies reveals that life in a 21st-century baby buggy can be emotionally isolating. Children in front-facing varieties are significantly less likely to talk, laugh and interact with their parents than those in buggies that face the pusher, according to the research. The study is published by the National Literacy Trust for its Talk to Your Baby campaign and funded by the educational charity the Sutton Trust.

It includes an observational study of more than 2,722 parent-infant pairs across the country, carried out by Suzanne Zeedyk, of Dundee University's school of psychology. Some 62% of the babies were in away-facing pushchairs, as were 86% of toddlers. Parents using face-to-face buggies were more than twice as likely to be talking to their child.

A separate, small-scale study monitored 20 babies wheeled in pushchairs across a one-mile stretch in Dundee. Half the journey was spent in an away-facing buggy and half in a parent-facing one. The results suggested that babies' average heart rates fell slightly in a parent-facing buggy, and babies were also twice as likely to fall asleep in this orientation, suggesting they may be more stressed when in away-facing buggies.

Mothers and infants also laughed more often in face-to-face buggies. Only one baby in the group of 20 laughed during the away-facing journey, while half laughed during the face-to-face journey.

Zeedyk emphasised that the study was small and required further investigation, but said: "If babies are spending significant amounts of time in a baby buggy that undermines their ability to communicate with their parent, at an age when the brain is developing more than it will ever again, then this has to impact negatively on their development. Our experimental study showed that, simply by turning the buggy around, parents' rate of talking to their baby doubled."

Laura Barbour of the Sutton Trust said: "The Sutton Trust hopes that buggy manufacturers will look closely at this research, which suggests that face-to-face models improve communication at a very early stage. The problem is that at present these cost a minimum of £200."

Bedtime stories may never be the same after the launch of an online tool to let parents and children who cannot be together share classic tales.

Built by entertainment company Chorion for the Noddy stories, Time for a Story lets parents and grandparents contact a child through Windows Live Messenger and lead them through a digital version of stories about the character.

Chorion is initially releasing three Noddy stories through the application, with more planned. Mr Men and Paddington Bear are also scheduled to be adapted for the tool ? although they may target at an older age group than the two- to five-year-olds Noddy is aimed at.

It is thought grown-ups in their 30s may also sign up for a dose of nostalgia based around their favourite childhood characters.

Time for a Story, developed by agency Digital Outlook, is being promoted through the Mumsnet community website, which took part in a trial of the application, and also on the MSN website, which gives a demonstration of the tool.

Users in the UK can access the stories through the "activities" tab in Windows Live Messenger. Parents control the speed of the story by clicking through pages, while the child can interact with pictures and words on screen for each part of the story.

"The kernel of the idea was from a producer who was working late a lot and not getting home to speak to his child, and ended up talking to them through IM," said a Chorion spokeswoman.

"There's no way we're saying this should replace that one-to-one contact or reading to a child while you are there, but we are trying to create a tool that allows parents or grandparents to interact with the child in a meaningful way when they can't be there."

The spokeswoman added that the tool provided a structure to the conversation through the form of the story ? which would allow even very young children to benefit, and because instant messenger enables video chat it provided an emotional connection.

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An average of four children die each week in England in a system that offers "patently inadequate" standards of care in the networks of schools, care workers and children's homes established to protect them, according to Ofsted.

Councils have systematically failed to learn from the mistakes made in dozens of the most serious cases of child abuse, while too many frontline staff in schools and health centres are still unable to recognise signs of abuse, Ofsted said in a report yesterday. Its verdict comes amid public concern after the death of 17-month-old Baby P in Haringey, north London, who died from 50 injuries despite being in regular contact with child protection officers and medics.

In the first report from Ofsted since it took responsibility in April 2007 for inspecting child protection facilities and assessing procedures, the watchdog raised urgent concerns about the system of serious case reviews, which are launched in the worst cases of abuse to help councils learn from mistakes made in their child protection teams.

Between April 2007 and August this year, local authorities reported 424 serious incidents, including 282 child deaths, 136 cases of serious harm, and six in which the outcome was unknown. One in four involved babies under 12 months.

Of 92 serious case reviews, 38 were rated inadequate and 34 just satisfactory - a rating Ofsted says is not good enough.

This led to serious delays in judging what went wrong in the child protection system in "almost all" of the cases, the report said. In one unnamed example it took a local authority four years to conduct a single serious case review, during which time other children could have come to harm. The report warned that some instances of serious abuse were going unreported by local authorities. One in four did not report a single case for review.

Christine Gilbert, Ofsted's chief inspector, welcomed some improvements but said she was frustrated that too many services were "patently inadequate" and improvement "unacceptably slow".

"Too many vulnerable children are still being let down by the system and we are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse," she said.

Referring to the Baby P case, she said: "I wish I could guarantee that such a case would never happen again. I can't give that guarantee. Everyone working in child protection has to stop, take stock, and look at what they are doing."

Symptoms of abuse were being missed by frontline staff such as teachers and health workers who were still too ready to "accept at face value" any injuries which could be signs of abuse, she said.

The report found some 8% of children's homes were "shockingly" inadequate, with concerns about children's safety in centres which were failing to vet and train staff properly. Bullying was going unchallenged in 7% of settings.

Procedures designed to ensure staff working with children talk to each other - a recommendation after the death of Victoria Climbié - were poor in many areas. "Consequently, necessary actions may not be taken to reduce the risks to children of sexual exploitation and drug or alcohol misuse."

The report also covered education, and found that while the number of inadequate schools had decreased, there was a "stubborn and persistent" problem of underperformance in secondary schools, with 9% judged inadequate. "There is a strong link across every sector between deprivation and poor quality provision," said Gilbert. "This means that children and families already experiencing relative deprivation face further inequity in the quality of care and support for their welfare, learning and development. In short, if you are poor you are more likely to receive poor services: disadvantage compounds disadvantage."

Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, said: "This Ofsted report underlines what we have been saying - the education system is failing poorer children. The gap between the privileged and disadvantaged is not being closed. That is why a Conservative government would shift resources to spend more money on the education of pupils from more deprived backgrounds."

Jim Knight, the schools minister, said: "There is a lot of good news in this report for frontline staff who are working hard to improve children's lives, to help them learn and achieve, and to keep them safe. But, as we set out in the Children's Plan, we won't be satisfied until every school and every service is meeting the standards set by the best."

Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, added: "I am pleased that the large majority of children's homes and social care services are doing well. However, I am very concerned that the report says that staff in some services are not equipped to recognise and respond to signs of abuse and neglect. Everybody working with children has a clear duty to keep them safe. There are no excuses for ignorance."

School report

? Almost two-thirds of inspected schools were good or outstanding, but the number of underperforming secondaries remained "stubborn and persistent". Some 9% were judged inadequate and 34% just satisfactory.

? More than one in three lessons in primary schools are not good enough, with teaching described as "pedestrian". In English and maths there is too much focus on short exercises instead of sustained pieces of writing or mathematical inquiries. In science, teachers' poor subject knowledge is the major barrier.

? At 11 children are being "over-prepared" for Sats, squeezing out more interesting lessons. High achievers in particular are given little scope to explore subjects fully.

? In secondaries, children are losing interest and behaving badly because they are not being sufficiently stretched. Teaching is too reliant on worksheets or focused on tests.

? Pupil surveys report that children feel safer at school compared with last year. However, in 28% of schools behaviour is no better than satisfactory: "Some pupils lack respect for adults and their peers and are boisterous and inconsiderate in moving around the school site."

? Services for children in care are "slowly" improving but many are given little say in where they are placed and rarely have support from one social worker for any length of time. Looked-after children routinely get among the worst exam results and are most likely to end up in the criminal justice system.

? Children of asylum seekers get worse all-round services than other children in care.

'In a recession, nobody will be interested in employing single parents." Julia, a lone mother of two children aged nine and 12, is pragmatic about her options. "Most of us will have been out of work for some time, and need hours to fit with school. That already puts us at the back of the queue. But in an economic downturn, I think it's going to be virtually impossible to get a job."

Julia's assessment of her prospects is abysmal, but fair. What is not fair is that, as of Monday, single parents with a child of an age with her eldest will be forced to find work of at least 16 hours per week, or risk a 40% benefit slash. The difficulties of securing a part-time job that dovetails with adequate childcare, even for the best-placed parents, has been well rehearsed. So this move is especially devastating, coming at a time when the government has just reneged on its commitment to flexible working while unemployment escalates.

As a former business analyst, Julia assumed that - once she had eased her children through the trauma of divorce - re-entering the workplace would be reasonably straightforward. She was wrong. After a long succession of confidence-sapping rejections and childcare-incompatible offers, she remains unemployed.

"I tried for office skills jobs - through agencies, the internet, the jobcentre and directly to banks - but none were viable. Most after-school clubs finish at 6pm and if you are working and expected to do overtime you can't get home for that. When you have older children, you can't keep an eye on what they're getting up to or be there if they're lonely. And you just can't get the holidays you need to be with them when they're not at school."

Julia's problems with inflexible working will be familiar to all parents, but are hugely exacerbated when functioning solo. And the chances of any immediate improvement are slim. Last month, new business secretary Peter Mandelson's imperative to ease the burden on businesses during recession found an early casualty in Labour's commitment to a more family friendly employment ethos.

Despite this, the process of transferring lone parents with progressively younger children off income support, which they can currently claim until their youngest child is 16, and on to jobseeker's allowance - which requires them to take work or face sanctions - looks set to continue. In less than two years' time, the age of the youngest child to shift this already vulnerable group on to far more treacherous territory will be just seven, affecting more than 300,000 families.

The new regulations do allow lone parents who cannot find "suitable, affordable or appropriate" childcare to turn down a job on these grounds. But how this will be applied in practice remains untested. And the regulations do not take into account the particular needs of parents with disabled children, or those experiencing problems at school, nor parents who have only recently separated. It is blind absurdity to compel a parent to work purely on the basis of their child's age. While the government's rhetoric around childcare is all about parental choice, these measures remove that choice, leaving the ultimate decision to the discretion of a Jobcentre Plus advisor who is manifestly not best placed to assess the needs of an individual family.

It is a further irony that this policy will severely limit lone parents' capacity to ready themselves for the employment market. Thirty per cent of single parents on benefits lack any formal qualifications. Yet a transfer to jobseeker's allowance means that many will be denied the opportunity to participate in education and training, since the benefit isn't available to those studying full-time.

Labour only started to take an interest in childcare when it surmised that one way to tackle this country's appalling level of child poverty was to get mothers into the workplace. But, despite the success of Sure Start, provision for older children - those who will be affected by the new regulations - remains poor. A recent report for the charity 4Children found that there was only one place for every 200 children aged 11-14.

While Labour is right to conclude that helping single parents back to work is the best way to ameliorate their disadvantage, it's plain these regulations alone will not achieve that end. The independent social security advisory committee recently reported its reservations about the proposals, noting "the underlying tensions between policies to promote greater personal responsibility for their children, and greater engagement in securing their health and wellbeing, and policies that may have the effect of forcing lone parents to give priority to paid employment."

So welfare-to-work has its limits: more than half of children living in poverty already have a parent in employment. And these proposals also subscribe to a middle-class agenda which assumes that all mothers - and the vast majority of single parents are women - are desperate to return to meaningful, well-paid jobs which fulfil their sense of self beyond the home. While the majority of single parents in this country are in employment, the ones who remain on benefits are by definition those who need much more than a bureaucratic kick up the arse to get them behind the till at Tesco. Credit crunch or not, it makes no sense to remove support for the people who choose to concentrate on the hard work of parenting in difficult circumstances.

The most vulnerable children are being failed by "patently inadequate" standards of care in the networks of schools, care workers and children's homes established to protect them from abuse, according to the chief inspector of schools.

Councils have systematically failed to learn from the mistakes made in dozens of the most serious cases of child abuse and schools and health workers are still failing to pick up signs of child abuse. It comes amidst intense public concern after the death of 17-month old Baby P in Haringey who died from 50 injuries despite being in regular contact with child protection officers and medics.

In the first annual report from Ofsted since it took responsibility for inspecting children protection facilities and practices, the watchdog raises urgent concerns about the system of serious case reviews, which are launched in the worst cases of child abuse to help councils learn from mistakes made in their child protection teams.

Between April 2007, when Ofsted assumed responsibility for assessing child protection procedures, and August this year local authorities reported 424 serious incidents including 282 child deaths, 136 of serious harm and six the outcome of which are unknown. One in four involved babies under the age of one. Of 92 serious case reviews conducted, 38 were rated inadequate and 34 just satisfactory ? a rating Ofsted says is not good enough.

This led to serious delays in judging what went wrong in the child protection system in "almost all" cases, the report warns. In one case it took a local authority four years to conduct a single serious case review during which time other children could have come to harm. The report warns that some of the most serious cases of child abuse involving child deaths are going unreported by local authorities. One in four local authorities didn't report a single case.

Gilbert said: "This report leaves me encouraged by the recognition that so much is going well for so many children, young people and adult learners; but frustrated that there is still too much that is patently inadequate and too many instances where the rate of improvement is unacceptably slow. Too many vulnerable children are still being let down by the system and we are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse."

Referring to the case of the death of Baby P in Haringey afterwards, she said: "I wish I could guarantee that such a case would never happen again. I can't give that guarantee. Everyone working in child protection has to stop, take stock and look at what they are doing."

The symptoms of child abuse are still being missed by "front-line" staff such as teachers and health workers who are still too ready to "accept at face value" signs of abuse, she said.

Some 8% of children's homes are "shockingly" inadequate with concerns about children's safety in centres that are failing to vet and train staff properly. Bullying was going unchallenged in 7% of settings. Procedures designed to ensure that all staff working with children talk to each other ? a key recommendation that was supposed to be implemented after the death of Victoria Climbie ? are poor in many areas. "Consequently, necessary actions may not be taken to reduce the risks to children of sexual exploitation and drug or alcohol misuse," the report says.

The report, which also covers education from nurseries to schools and colleges, finds that although the number of inadequate schools has decreased since last year, there was a "stubborn and persistent" problem of underperformance in secondaries where 9% were judged inadequate.

Gilbert said: "There is a strong link across every sector between deprivation and poor-quality provision. This means that children and families already experiencing relative deprivation face further inequity in the quality of care and support for their welfare, learning and development. In short, if you are poor, you are more likely to receive poor services: disadvantage compounds disadvantage."

Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, said: "This OFSTED report underlines what we have been saying ? the education system is failing poorer children. The gap between the privileged and disadvantaged is not being closed. That is why a Conservative government would shift resources to spend more money on the education of pupils from more deprived backgrounds."

Jim Knight, the schools minister, said: "There is a lot of good news in this report for frontline staff who are working hard to improve children's lives, to help them learn and achieve, and to keep them safe. But as we set out in the Children's Plan, we won't be satisfied until every school and every service is meeting the standards set by the best."

Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, added: "I am pleased that the large majority of children's homes and social care services are doing well. However, I am very concerned that the report says that staff in some services are not equipped to recognise and respond to signs of abuse and neglect. Everybody working with children has a clear duty to keep them safe ? there are no excuses for ignorance."