Kingston Local Children’s Safeguarding Board (LCSB) has been criticised by the NSPCC after it published a report into Baby P style abuse claims on its website for just five days before deleting it.

The serious case review, into allegations a father was able to sexually abuse his children despite numerous contacts with social services, began in December 2009, but was stalled by criminal proceedings that finished in November 2012.

The allegations dated back to 2003 and 2005, but the report into whether or not there were failings by Kingston Hospital, Kingston Council, police and other public bodies was published for just five days on February 22.

The report is no longer available and the Comet has since been refused sight of it.

Kingston Council said the decision to publish for just five days had been taken by the entire safeguarding board during Ann Dominey’s chairmanship, before she resigned sometime before Christmas.

David Tucker, from the NSPCC, said: “Publishing serious case reviews for just a short period is not good practice and we are concerned that this is happening.

“The idea of making these reports public is for people to discover what went wrong and to try to ensure those mistakes are not repeated.

“If this is not happening it can only be a hindrance to saving children from being seriously harmed or killed and does nothing to bolster confidence that lessons are being learned.”

A Department for Education spokesman said: “Since June 2010 we have been clear that lessons can only be learned from these tragic cases if the findings are open and transparent to professionals and the public.”

In a statement Kingston Council said: “Given the length of time this matter had been ongoing for family members it was agreed with them that the executive summary would be published on Kingston’s LSCB website and as it was under old guidance it would only be published for a short period of time.

“This allowed the LSCB to better meet the needs of a very vulnerable family.”

Patricia Bamford, councillor responsible for children’s services, said: “I had a chance last night to discuss this matter very briefly with the director Nick Whitfield.

“He confirmed that the serious case review was published in line with guidance and that any possible future publication would require the consent of the family concerned.”

A Kingston Council spokesman said he understood other London boroughs followed the same guidance.

But in a survey of 16 other London safeguarding children boards, all published anonymised executive summaries of serious case reviews as a matter of course.

Two boards – Hounslow and Brent – had removed serious case reviews after three months and six months respectively, but said the reviews were still available upon request.

Richmond Council, which has now taken over Kingston Council's child protection teams since its director of children's services Nick Whitfield arrived in the summer, said it had removed the summary of its only serious case review.

A spokesman for the council said the review would be available upon request.

What other LSCB workers said about the 'five day' removal guidance

Barnet: "I've never heard of that process."

Bromley: "No. Ours are on there."

Camden: "I'm not aware of that."

Croydon: "They are on there for everybody to see whenever."

Greenwich: "I've never heard of that before."

Haringey: "All serious case reviews are published since 2010 on our website."

Hillingdon: "I'm not sure about that."