Vulnerable children are at risk of falling through the child protection net because of severe staff shortages, social services directors warned this week.

At a media briefing two days before the opening of the Laming inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, the Associ-ation of Directors of Social Services revealed that there are over 2,000 front-line child protection worker vacancies in England.

Figures from July show a vacancy rate of 14.7 per cent, while just under 9 per cent of manager posts are also vacant.

ADSS president Moira Gibb warned that the safety net for children "was being stretched too tightly". There was insufficient money for children's services to meet the rise in demand and not enough staff to "do what is a very difficult and demanding job".

Directors surveyed said they had to fill vacant posts with newly qualified staff and unqualified social workers. Even agency staff were proving difficult to find and were themselves newly qualified social workers or from abroad.

ADSS senior vice-president Mike Leadbetter said that staff would ideally have two years' experience before tackling some of the more complex child protection cases.

Gibb added that staff needed support and supervision but first line managers were very difficult to recruit. "In some departments we have agency managers supervising agency staff," she said.

Asked whether staff shortages explained the Climbie tragedy, Gibb said: "We are not saying that this is a failed system and that organisations have not made mistakes but are asking you to consider the wider pressures on the system. We are saying that individual workers are more likely to make mistakes because of the pressure they are under."

Gibb also raised concerns that cases involving families in need were being closed prematurely. And she argued that social services had not received the same increase in resources as health and education.

On the forthcoming Department of Health social care recruitment campaign, Gibb said that she wanted it to be "as sophisticated and well-resourced as that for nurses and teachers".