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The director of Norfolk social services, David Wright, is to write to the Climbie inquiry head Lord Laming and ask him to examine the particular stresses faced by individual social workers which may lead to errors.

He has admitted 'crucial mistakes' which, if avoided, could have saved Lauren Wright from death at the hands of her stepmother.

Wright described a number of 'human errors' made by his staff which sealed Lauren's fate.  But he added that his departments were 'stretched to the point of transparency.'

Wright told a press conference this week: 'Had we followed the correct procedures which were already in place, Lauren would be alive today.'

He said social workers had failed to act on a second anonymous phone call alerting them to the child's plight.

And the warnings from Hertfordshire social workers, who contacted their Norfolk counterparts about Lauren just ten days before she died, were not acted upon, he said.

The third crucial mistake was a failure to convene a meeting before Lauren's death of all agencies involved in the case.

'Had this occurred at an early stage conflicting information could have been directly evaluated and a risk assessment formulated,' said a Norfolk Area Child Protection Committee report.

Wright said: 'These decisions were wrong and led to absolutely dreadful consequences...nobody feels worse about that than we do...We are desperately sorry that we let Lauren down.'

He said his staff were often subject to verbal and physical attacks and were facing an ever-increasing load of child protection cases.

'In such circumstances is it really so surprising that mistakes are made from time to time. The truth is that all social workers feel dreadfully bad when these mistakes happen and we are dreadfully sorry for what happened.'

He said his staff had become 'battle weary' and their judgement liable to be impaired.

In the western division of Norfolk social services where Lauren Wright lived, less than half the posts for social workers were filled at the time of the girl's death.

Norfolk social services is currently being restructured to take in lessons learned from the Lauren Wright case. Managers have emphasised the need for better communication between various caring agencies.