Children's social workers are being forced out of their jobs by rocketing workloads.

New figures released by Brighton and Hove City Council show the number of children being referred to social services rose by 61% after the Baby P case and social workers have been left struggling to cope.

The city council claims it is coping better than other authorities but is still spending up to £600,000 a year on agency staff to fill the gaps.

The authority has now launched a recruitment drive to try to fill the vacant spaces and is investing an extra £474,000 in the service.

A report to the council’s audit committee admits children’s social work teams are “under pressure” because of their heavy workload.

It reads: “There also continues to be a churn in frontline social workers leaving from the most pressurised teams, i.e.

the children’s social work front doors. As a result of both of these factors the majority of the overspend within this area of £618,000 is due to agency social work staff.

“The branch has a robust rolling prog ramme of recruitment and retention including a bursary scheme to attract newly qualified social workers from the universities. For 2011/12 an additional £474,000 has been invested in the children’s social work service to increase capacity.”

The report goes on to say there has been a sustained level of referrals to social care since the Baby P case in 2007, with demand rising by up to 61% at the worst point.

The Argus was refused the opportunity to interview an officer from the social services team.

A council spokesman said: “We have worked hard to recruit and retain social workers so while there remains a national shortage we have a very low vacancy rate of just five-and-a-half posts across Brighton and Hove and currently only use four agency staff.

“The tragic case of Baby Peter led to a national rise in referrals and we also experienced a rise."