A third of English social workers had still not applied for registration with the General Social Care Council just one week before its 1 December deadline.

The GSCC said it had received 30,000 applications to join the register by November 23, leaving a further 14,000 forms outstanding.

Applications that arrive later than 1 December are not guaranteed to be processed in time for next April, when registration becomes a legal requirement.

The GSCC reported an eleventh-hour upsurge in applications this month, with 2,400 in the first week of November.

"Applications are flooding in now," a GSCC spokesperson said. "Since the publicity in October, some authorities that had not put many social workers through have made tremendous leaps forward. Some employers have been stockpiling applications."

But, despite dedicated teams to process the forms, the sheer weight of numbers was slowing down the process, the spokesperson warned.

But the GSCC insisted it was too soon to discuss possible sanctions for employees who failed to register before the law changed in April.

Meanwhile, most organisations are backing GSCC plans to focus on front-line managers rather than domiciliary care workers in its next registration drive.

Of 225 organisations consulted, 179 backed the plan. Of those who disagreed with registering managers first, 14 were social services departments and 19 were domiciliary care agencies.

The charity Action on Elder Abuse has campaigned for domiciliary care staff to be given priority in registration because of concerns over abuses of older people.

The GSCC was due to discuss results of the consultation earlier this week.