In this case because there were so many agencies involved, school, social service, police etc I'd say this does point to a systemic failure rather than individual incompetence.
There are simple things that have been highlighted, like a child having 2 or 3 different 'idendity numbers' and different services using different ones which makes it harder to cross reference data compared to if it was all stored under 1 record on 1 database.
I also chatted to my partner about why or how this could have gone so wrong. It seems when a situation arises and you have multiple agencies involved then someone is nominated 'the lead professional' and it's then their job to head the investigation and co-ordinate all the other agencies. This could well be someone like my partner, a nursery manager. This is then a huge amount of work just plonked on someone, with a lot of responsibility that you suddenly have to do on top of your normal job and it might not be the only one you have. So this tends to mean no-one actually wants to take the role willingly. So for example, if you had more funding, you could create a role that is 'the lead' for any vunerable child case and does all the co-ordinating and manages the case, then it's their sole focus to make sure the investigation is progressing and doesn't fall through the cracks.
