Rochdale social services department could face legal action over its failure to stop the sexual abuse of young girls in Heywood, a township within the borough. Richard Scorer of Pannone said the report into the affair, published on 27 September, gives "a pretty firm basis" for legal action.
The report, by Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board catalogued "many missed opportunities" to take action by numerous agencies to prevent the sexual exploitation.

In May, nine men were jailed for the systematic grooming and abuse of several young girls in the town.

Following the publication of the report the chief executive of Rochdale Council, Jim Taylor, was summoned before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee. Chairman of the committee, Keith Vaz MP, said: "As part of its on-going inquiry into grooming, the committee will be recalling the chief executive of Rochdale Council to explain why social services missed opportunities to stop the exploitation of vulnerable girls, what is being done to ensure agencies are now working together to keep them safe and how individuals responsible for the failings will be held to account."

Lynne Jones, chair of Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board: "We have responded to this review and improvements have been implemented. I believe organisations are working better together, sharing information to ensure children are protected and that perpetrators of these crimes are prosecuted.

"Raising awareness so that young people are better equipped to understand what is happening to them or to their friends has been delivered to 10,000 young people.

"Staff training has ensured that professionals are now more aware and able to respond appropriately and the licensing authority is more actively using its powers to stop criminal activity. We are also seeing stronger joint working on police operations to bring people to justice."

According to a report in Local Government Lawyer, the Board is also undertaking a serious case review into child sexual exploitation. This is expected to be published in 2013.

However, according to Richard Scorer, there may well be legal action well before that. He told the BBC: "There's clear evidence that social services failed to act, failed to intervene, when they had this mass of information, about this grooming and exploitation of young girls.

"They failed to act on that information, even though they had a responsibility to do that. And that's the basis of any legal action we'll be putting forward.

"Obviously we need to...build up the detail of exactly what happened. But I think this report probably does give us a pretty firm basis for legal action against social services."