In the wake of the failure of the social work and health authorities in Haringey to halt the cruel treatment or prevent the death of Baby P, there will be considerable alarm, and not a little anger, at the revelation that children at risk of harm, abuse or neglect in Aberdeen are not receiving the help and support they need.

Although Aberdeen and Haringey are hundreds of miles apart and operate under different legal frameworks, there are distinct similarities in the way the systems set up to protect children are failing in each authority. Particularly disturbing is that in both the London borough and the Scottish city, a child has been killed due to previous failures of the system. Eleven years ago, nine-year-old Scott Simpson was murdered in Aberdeen by a convicted paedophile who was being supervised by a social worker after being released from prison. Eight years ago, Victoria Climbie was murdered by carers from her extended family in Haringey. Subsequent reviews were intended to minimise the likelihood of another child suffering the same fate.

Yet the report by HMIE, the education inspectorate, into child protection services in Aberdeen identifies significant gaps in the system, such as insufficient training for police and social work staff to undertake joint interviews with children. Particularly relevant was the lack of a collective approach to address staffing issues in social work and a lack of specialist training.

With some justification, social workers have protested over the years that individuals have been made scapegoats and it has been true in almost every one of these tragic cases that the departments were short-staffed and frontline workers not given sufficient support. That does not mean they are not accountable. The HMIE inspectors found that even when there were high levels of risk to children, social work staff in Aberdeen relied too heavily on the parents' agreement to work voluntarily with them and often did not intervene quickly enough.

That also mirrors the situation in Haringey, where social workers and health visitors formed the view that Baby P's young mother was inadequate rather than abusive. Much of the damage, however, was inflicted by her boyfriend and a lodger; with hindsight it is sickeningly clear that this was a case not of inadequacy but of depravity. The first lesson to be learned is that social workers (and health visitors) must be sufficiently trained to know the difference and, if in doubt, to seek an expert opinion.

It is not as simple as taking children at risk into care: one of the difficulties identified in the Aberdeen report is that there is a shortage of safe places for children at risk. Directors of social services say they cannot guarantee the safety of every child (and two more infants killed in Manchester make that chillingly clear). But that is not what is asked of social workers. What exasperates the taxpayer is when they prove ineffective: Baby P died despite 60 visits from health and social workers in the past eight months. What is required is a simpler, more robust system, including clear lines of procedure and accountability where abuse is suspected.

The inspection regime should be the final safeguard, not the first. Under streamlining plans, responsibility for overseeing child protection in Scotland will move from HMIE to the social work inspectorate: it must lose nothing in rigour.