Actually yes, the parents DO have the sole responsibility, until they either give it up voluntarily by placing the child for adoption or have it taken from then by the law courts due to them proving that they are not capable of exercising that responsibility. The can ask someone to share that responsibility (and on a day-to-day basis many of us do - for example while the child is in a day nursery or even at school), but ultimately the buck stops with them.
The problem in this case is that the parents HAD shown their inability to exercise their responsibility, but the system which was supposed to pick this up had failed to do so, or at least had failed to act decisively on that knowledge. The person who was responsible for ensuring that such parental inadequacies were noted and acted upon was Ms Shoesmith. Since she failed to ensure that action was taken I'm afraid she showed herself not to be up to the job.
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