THE safety of children in Edinburgh's residential care homes is being compromised by lack of funding and chronically low morale among carers, the city's director of social work said yesterday, writes Amelia Hill.

Leslie McEwan told the first day of the city council's public inquiry into current safeguards in residential homes that the previous Government's cash-saving strategies had effectively slashed his department's budget for three years in a row, damaging services desperately needed by some of the most vulnerable and mixed-up children in the city.

He also spoke of the difficulty in attracting qualified people into the service and the frustration of losing them to professions with a higher social status as soon as their training was completed.

His claims were made at an inquiry set up in the wake of a recent High Court case which saw two former Lothian children's home staff jailed for a total of 26 years for abuse against young residents.

Mr McEwan said: ''Limited budgets mean that we sometimes struggle to provide and maintain adequate safeguards to protect children, especially in the training and recruitment of staff.

''But we're clear that no single measure on its own will protect children from harm. Sadly, we can never assure a child's safety absolutely - 100% protection cannot be guaranteed. Devious people will insinuate themselves into positions of trust and opportunistic abuse will occur,'' he said.

The social work department's budget has been reduced by #14.7m since 1996. Ever-tightening budgets have led to temporary, unqualified, staff filling in for prolonged periods of time after permanent staff have resigned. Senior management posts have been deleted and the tasks passed on to other organisations.

Just 73 of the 220 residential care officers in Edinburgh are trained to the minimum level identified in a 1991 review, and only 16 of the 44 assistant unit manager are qualified to a similar level.