WITH regard to MP Andrew Smith’s comments on the possibility of a public inquiry in the wake of the Bullfinch case (Oxford Mail, September 17).

As a former child protection social worker I would like one thing to be made very clear. However good the quality of the social workers and however good their intentions they cannot do the necessary ‘safeguarding’ unless there are enough of them.

I retired from Oxfordshire County Council Children’s Department in 1998. The children’s side of the work was really very good, specially when compared to other authorities I knew. However even then we were being seriously understaffed.

I believe this has something to do with the County’s Standard Spending Assessment.

During Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister, it was set very low because the county council was such a good ‘housekeeper’.

When the Labour Government came in, they did nothing about this and I believe this is the same situation we find ourselves in today; grossly underfunded now made worse by the austerity cuts.

The year before I retired I had learnt that we were working at about 50 per cent of the national average ie the percentage of social workers to population (this did not surprise me as I had in 30 years never worked so hard).

We had larger caseloads than was normal in other departments. After I left, some changes were made and staff numbers were protected for a couple of years. Then more and more cutbacks were made and I believe this has got even worse recently.

It will be obvious that this is not a safe way to run a department to protect children and to assist their families to function better.

Regardless of party politics, we in Oxfordshire should insist that central Government makes more money available so that more staff can be employed to work directly with needy and dangerous families, in order to safeguard our children.

I understand that there are already some improvements being made, especially in the area of residential care, and I am sure there is a great wish to make things more effective, but without a realistic budget we cannot expect real change.

It’s time for all people who care to do something – can anyone set up a proper petition to let the Government know what we want ? Our vulnerable children have no voice. We must speak up for them.

A public inquiry would be extremely expensive, would take an extremely long time and would take attention away from improving things for vulnerable children in Oxfordshire.

Of course, there must be a report that could happen more quickly so that those ‘victims’ can know that we acknowledge that we failed them in many ways.

Perhaps, instead, the money saved from a public inquiry could be used to help us to increase the number of good social workers so they can provide a safer service.

Sarah Lasenby, Oxford