Ruth Stark, professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers Scotland, said staff were suffering from "initiative fatigue" as the executive pushed through more new measures, such as integrating children's services.
Her comments came after Scotland's chief social work inspector admitted children's services were taking the biggest hit from a shortage of social workers. Angus Skinner said the "raft of initiatives" the executive had introduced made heavy demands on local authorities and the benefits had "yet to show".
Spending on social services more than doubled over 10 years from 800m in 1991-92 to 1.8bn in 2001-02.
However, Stark said this was still not enough to keep pace with the increasing workload.
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