Exclusive: Number of children 'at risk' soars in Yorkshire

The region's children-at-risk register has grown by a fifth in little more than a year, putting added strain on councils already under pressure to cut costs in the economic crisis.

More than 3,500 children were on child protection plans in January, up from less than 3,000 in November 2008, and some social workers say recruitment problems have left them having to keep track of more than 50 cases each.

The growing workload follows a rise in the number of referrals to Yorkshire's children's services departments since the much-publicised case of 17-month-old Peter Connelly, known Baby P.

Peter died after suffering more than 50 injuries over an eight-month period at the hands of his mother Tracey Connelly, her boyfriend Steven Barker and Barker's brother Jason Owen.

The case prompted the Government to ask Lord Laming to carry out a second inquiry into child welfare services, following on from his report into the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2000.

Figures obtained by the Yorkshire Post under freedom of information laws reveal that the region's social workers were receiving 133 referrals a day before Baby Peter's tormentors were convicted, but the rate has since risen to 151 a day.

Hull Council reported a 69 per cent rise in child protection plans, while social workers in Bradford (63 per cent), Sheffield (53) North Yorkshire (47) and Kirklees (36) have also seen a surge in cases.

Hull Council's head of safeguarding and development, Jon Plant, said: "The Baby Peter case, the impact of Lord Laming's inquiry and the Government's response to this have all increased expectations on front-line safeguarding provisions.

"There has also been heightened public and professional awareness of safeguarding with people becoming more vigilant, as well as improvements in the quality and level of information-sharing between agencies."

Bradford Council's assistant director of social care, Julie Jenkins, said: "Along with most other local authorities in the country, we have seen a substantial rise in referrals since the sad death of Baby Peter, which has resulted in an increase in children needing to be subject to a child protection plan."

The region's councils had 145 children's social care vacancies between them at the end of January this year. One authority, East Riding Council, revealed that almost one-fifth of its positions were unfilled.

Tony Pearson, regional organiser at the public service union Unison, said some social workers in Yorkshire now had more than 50 cases to monitor.

"The hours that they are putting in can be quite phenomenal at times, and the root of many of the problems we've seen in children's services has been that social workers are overworked and expected to make calls on a large number of cases.

"We need to address the vacancy issue. We can't expect people to carry caseloads of 53 and expect errors not to occur."

Concerns about neglect account for at least 40 per cent of child protection plans in Yorkshire and about one in three children are being monitored because of fears they may be victims of emotional abuse.