Labor has warned the Department of Family and Community Services is set to come under more pressure due to secret government plans to reduce its annual budget by $70 million through job cuts.

According to the latest figures, Hunter New England had a full contingent of caseworkers, or 304, in June.

It marks a major turnaround in staffing levels, compared to 28 vacancies out of 301 funded positions a year ago.

But staff are still only conducting face-to-face assessments of about 29 per cent – or 3768 – of 13,068 children in the region reported over a year to be at risk of significant harm. The total number of children who were the subject of reports was the largest number for any area in the state.

For the same period in 2014, 12,648 children were reported as at risk of significant harm in Hunter New England, but again only 29 per cent underwent checks.

Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard said vacancies for caseworkers were at their lowest rates for the state, following the government’s efforts to address the problem.

But the opposition revealed during a budget estimates hearing on Monday a government memo dated December 2014 that said the department’s budget would have to be cut by $70 million annually from 2016 and 30 per cent of staff from its central office would have to go.

Labor’s Family and Community Services spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk said a 30 per cent cut across the department would equate to a crippling loss of 5000 jobs.

Mr Hazzard refused to explain the cuts, saying only that the budget would be “more than adequate”. 

But Department director general Michael Coutts-Trotter later said in a statement that the cut targeted only one area, and only 91 executive staff and contractor jobs would actually be scrapped.

“No savings have come from frontline child protection positions,” he said.