A FIFTH of children's social worker posts in Derby are empty in the wake of the Baby P tragedy and at a time when the number of children classed as at risk has risen by 38% in a year.

Across the entire social services section, there are 18 posts unfilled, compared to January when all but one post was occupied.

But the vacancy rate among teams within the department which deal specifically with child-abuse allegations has soared to 30%.

The figures have caused concern among care professionals in the city who are now dealing with more children at risk.

As of November 11, 2009, there were 181 children with a child-protection plan to assess their risk of harm.

That has risen from 131 at the same time last year, although the previous year, 2007, the number stood at 202.

Janet Foulds, chairwoman of the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire branch of the British Association of Social Workers, said it was a concern. "I think the current vacancy situation in Derby is concerning but not 'dangerous' although I believe it to be much more worrying in other parts of the UK," she said.

Part of the blame for the rise has been put down to the negative publicity given to social work surrounding the Baby Peter case in Haringey.

In that case there was a catalogue of errors by a range of people leading up to the child's death. But it was Sharon Shoesmith, head of the council's social services department, who became the subject of a Sun newspaper campaign calling for her and "all social services staff who failed the tragic toddler" to be sacked. In December 2008 she lost her job.

Ms Foulds said: "The publicity that followed the death of 'Baby Peter' had some very significant effects on social work practice and particularly for those workers in frontline child care services.

"The climate became quite hostile, helped in no small part by high-profile media campaigns such as that in the Sun, which made practice much more challenging for social workers."

And as that effect has trickled through, the number of empty posts in Derby has risen from one in January to 18 out of the 98 posts now.

But while the number of staff goes down, the workload continues to increase as more cases of suspected child abuse are now being reported to the council because the public has become more aware of it following the Baby Peter case.

From April 2008 to the end of March 2009, there were 2,575 cases referred to the children's social work teams.

Already, from April 2009 to November 11, 2009, there have been 1,642 cases referred – an average of 235 a month.

Ms Foulds said this had knock-on effects on staff at the council. "Inevitably, when there are vacancies in the workforce this leads to considerable pressure on workers to carry higher caseloads," she said.

"The demand for services does not diminish but there are fewer people to respond.

"With less time available to work with children and families and greater stress for workers as they have to make difficult decisions about priorities, this can lead to overload for workers as they try to cover vacant posts.

"It can also lead to higher sickness levels as people work longer hours and struggle to meet demand."

Derby City Council said it was working to try to manage the situation in Derby to ensure children were protected. It has increased the funding for recruitment to enable it to reach a wider audience and held more training and development of staff in the city.

It also said it did employ agency staff on a short-term basis to ease the pressure on staff.

Councillor Les Allen, cabinet member for children and young people, said: "There is a national shortage of social workers, and inner-city areas usually suffer most. Although it is difficult to say all of the current recruitment issues are due to recent publicity around child protection work, front-line social work posts remain the most difficult and challenging jobs to fill.

"This year has seen an increase in funding to allow the creation of extra social work posts. Managers are currently working to recruit to both vacancies and these new posts. As a short-term measure we use agency staff to ease pressure on our already hard-pressed social work staff."

Ms Foulds said she was confident the council was working hard to keep on top of the vacancy rates in Derby. And she said that, while higher salaries may be welcomed, she believed few people entered the profession because of pay.