The agency has been adrift for years, confused about its mission and resistant to change. As a result, it "fails to protect some of Philadelphia's most vulnerable children," the panel said in a much-anticipated review of the $600 million-a-year department.

Appointed by Mayor Street after articles in The Inquirer raised question about DHS, the panel said the agency had to make sweeping changes or children would remain "at risk of continued abuse and neglect."

The panel scrutinized 52 children whose families were known to DHS who died from 2001 through 2006 - and found that 27 died of abuse or in suspicious circumstances. A dozen others died needlessly in unsafe "co-sleeping" episodes, panelists said.

"There were preventable deaths," said panelist Cindy W. Christian, a pediatrician who heads the child-abuse unit at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

To overhaul the agency, the panel recommended a series of reforms ranging from a rethinking of its core mission to the development of new investigative tools. Among other steps, it said the agency must:

Visit all children under 5 within two hours of receiving a warning that they might be abused or neglected. Currently, the agency takes up to five days to conduct many such visits.

Require social workers to use a common set of guidelines to evaluate whether children are in danger. Before the scandal broke, DHS had no such common standard, leading it to render important decisions about families randomly and capriciously.

Monitor more closely the outside contractors who handle most of the face-to-face contacts with children, parents and guardians. The agency should issue public report cards grading their performance, the panel said.

The panel said the mayor must appoint a permanent oversight commission to keep watch on DHS.

"This is urgent and doable," said panel co-chair Carol Wilson Spigner of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Acting DHS Commissioner Arthur C. Evans Jr., who took over after Street forced out the previous commissioner, said the agency had already implemented some of the changes and would phase in the rest.

"DHS is embracing all of the recommended reforms," Evans said.

Street, through a spokesman, commended the work of the unpaid panel but said a detailed response would come later. "The report is a road map to lasting reform and we welcome it," spokesman Joe Grace said.

Michael Nutter, the Democratic nominee for mayor, said last night that, if elected, he would use the report as "a blueprint for change."

Nutter added: "DHS must be fixed on behalf of the children of Philadelphia."

Al Taubenberger, the Republican candidate, said he found the report powerful and convincing.

"It's unconscionable that children are dying on the watch of the city and this agency," Taubenberger said.

The panel suggested that DHS' problems lie in a lack of leadership, not a lack of money.

As the report noted, "DHS is better financed and resourced than most, if not all, [agencies in] other major cities."

Nor is the problem a lack of outside scrutiny. The agency's pervasive problems have been documented in more than 20 lawsuits and reviews over the last two decades.