FIVE investigations into possible child abuse have taken place in Worcestershire since April 2006, a survey has revealed.

Worcestershire County Council has launched five “serious case reviews” and Herefordshire County Council has carried out three.

Serious case reviews are conducted where a child dies or is seriously injured from possible abuse.

As previously reported in your Worcester News, a serious case review was recently conducted into the death of Jade Tyler, aged 16, of Carnforth Drive, Warndon, who was found dead in January.

The national survey by The Press Association obtained figures from 120 councils and suggests there has been no fall in the number of children coming to harm since the death of Baby P – now named as Peter Connelly – in August 2007.

Responding to the research, a social workers’ leader warned there were “Baby Peters in every local authority” and said the failings in the case could be repeated in many other areas.

Across England, there were 95 serious case reviews launched in 2006-07, 98 in 2007-08, 106 in 2008-09 and 49 have been started since April this year, the survey found.

Over this period, Birm-ingham and Kent topped the table having each launched 12 serious case reviews.

As well as Worcester-shire, Haringey in north London, which was sev-erely criticised for failing to prevent the death of 17-month-old Peter, also launched five serious case reviews. Three were laun-ched in Herefordshire.

The survey also revealed there are 161 social work posts at Worcestershire County Council, 24 vacancies and they employ three temporary staff.

The salary of Gail Quinton, the director of children’s services, was given as £112,998 to £124,296.

Hilary Thompson, independent chairman of the Worcestershire Safeguard-ing Children Board, which carries out serious case reviews in the county, said: “The reviews undertaken in Worcestershire were considered to be very thorough and were given good feedback by Ofsted.

“The main purpose of a review is to establish what lessons can be learned and where services can be improved.”

Hilton Dawson, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, said frontline staff spend too much time completing paperwork to “cover the backs of local authorities”.

He said: “I think there are frankly Baby Peters in every local authority in this country and there is the possibility of a Haringey in many, many local authorities.

“The problems that surfaced there are not so dissimilar from many other places.