Children's social services are struggling to cope with increasing workloads, states Ofsted's annual report.

Their annual inspections found that one in three local councils and 10 in total, were failing to keep children and young people in their area safe. The watchdog said that the inadequate authorities were a "real cause for concern."

Between March 2009 and March this year, there was an 11 per cent increase in the number of referrals to children's services. The number of children that were made subject of child protection plans rose by 4.7 per cent whilst the number of initial assessments carried out by a qualified social worker saw an increase of 12 per cent.

It is thought that several high profile child protection cases such as that of Baby P, have raised awareness among the public leading to  heavy caseloads but, with many council facing staff shortages some children are being forced to wait for the help they need.

As reported by The Press Association, the inspectorate warned that social services departments are facing "significant challenges," in an addition to more public scrutiny on what is being done to keep children safe.

"Significant challenges face social care services in many local authorities from several sources. Public and media scrutiny of safeguarding issues has never been greater. There is pressure to bring about improvement," the report says.

The Ofsted report also noted that results of the national social work survey indicated that 64 per cent of social workers said they did not have enough time to spend with the children and young people assigned to them.

Local authorities may soon have to recruit more staff to fill social work assistant positions, which could free up some of the time social workers spend on paperwork allowing them to spend more time with the children in their care.