THE man in charge of children’s social services has defended social workers saying they do a “complex” job.

Steve Crocker, director of children’s services at Hampshire County Council, spoke out at a meeting in Winchester.

His comments came as the meeting considered a revenue report for children’s services – a department set to lose £21.3m as part of ongoing budget cuts.

As part of these proposals, child social care funding could be slashed by £7.7m.

However, Mr Crocker insisted that money is never on the minds of social care workers.

“They don’t go out with the financial situation playing on their mind,” he said.

“Instead, their job is simply to make the right call for the child they see in front of them – that’s all we’re interested in.

“With cases like Star Hobson and Baby P there was a lot of public anger, and justifiably so.

“But the people responsible for their deaths have been tried and convicted.

“The people who tried to help – even if they made mistakes – are not responsible for the deaths.”

He defended the profession. “No police officer, or social worker, goes out to do a bad job,” he said.

“They go out with the information they have available and while there are lessons to be learned, social care is an incredibly complex field.”

Mr Crocker said the number of children referred to social workers spikes every time there is a high-profile case of abuse.

Figures published by the county council show a 21 per cent increase in the number of children in social care from 2016 to 2021.

Last year the deaths of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes made national headlines as separate criminal court cases heard that both children were subjected to abhorrent abuse by their parents.

Publicity causes a spike in reports, the county council said.

Mr Crocker said: “When there are high-profile cases like Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, people make more phone calls to the social care team. That’s obviously better than not hearing about these things at all.

“But it’s hard to separate the rise in referrals due to high-profile cases from the decrease due to Covid-19 – family members and teachers have seen less of these children in the past two years so that’s had a knock-on effect.

“It goes to show that we must keep pushing forward, always striving to do better.”

The comments were made at the children and young people select committee on Friday.