MORE than £500,000 is being spent on extra social workers to help cope with a "massive increase" in referrals of children at risk of abuse or neglect.

Staffordshire County Council says pressures have been partly fuelled by publicity over the death of Baby Peter, pictured below, who suffered months of abuse as agencies in Haringey, London, repeatedly missed chances to intervene.

But there has also been growing awareness locally of the "hidden harm" youngsters may be suffering if living in households where there is domestic violence or drug or alcohol addiction.

The impact is now being felt across the system, from the number of referrals made, to the number of children taken into care.

Now 15 extra staff have been hired to help bolster management and frontline support.

The £566,902 to cover their wages over the next year has come from the council's main budget.

The staff include extra social workers in Newcastle, Stafford, Leek and Biddulph, more first response call takers, and a new head of strategic safeguarding.

Assistant director Andrew Brunt, who oversees area-based services for children and families, said there had been a massive increase in referrals.

He said: "A referral is where a child may be in need, such as being at risk at home, and we need to carry out an assessment.

"Some of the referrals are not appropriate, or the information isn't complete, and we have to make sure a child isn't at risk of harm."

But he said there was evidence pressures were easing as professionals became better at using a common assessment framework and more support was offered to families before they reached crisis point.

In 2007/08, there were 15,184 contacts made with the council to report informal concerns about children.

The figure leapt to 17,547 in 2008/09, at the height of the Baby Peter publicity.

Formal referrals increased, from 430 referrals per 10,000 children in the population in 2007/08, to 521 by the end of 2009.

Out of the 400 youngsters with a child protection plan, the system which replaced the child protection register, more than half have been classed as at risk of neglect.

Children in danger of being physically abused account for nine per cent, and seven per cent are at risk of sexual abuse.

Mr Brunt highlighted how a recent Ofsted inspection into Staffordshire's safeguarding services found the county's youngsters were generally safe.

Liz Staples, chairman of the council's children and lifelong learning scrutiny committee, said: "We all know how important safeguarding is.

"When things go wrong, we are the ones who are in the press and that's not what we want for Staffordshire."