Child caseworkers counted six ways CHILD protection caseworker numbers in NSW have been counted using at least six different methods. Family and Community Services boss Michael Coutts-Trotter made the admission on Monday in front of an upper house inquiry on ministerial propriety, which is probing whether Minister Pru Goward misled parliament about caseworker numbers. You are not attempting to tell the committee today that caseworker numbers have done anything other than decline are you? Labor MP Luke Foley asked Mr Coutts-Trotter. Mr Coutts-Trotter said numbers remained "pretty consistent" but that it was difficult to determine caseworker numbers because they had been counted in various ways. "There have been, according to the Ernst & Young report, at least six different ways of counting caseworkers inside community services at different points in time," the director-general said. Mr Coutts-Trotter said, if the funded level of caseworkers was converted into full-time equivalent positions, it showed a decline - but that a head count didn't show that. He conceded that the department clearly wasn't "effectively translating" funding for 2068 community services caseworkers into frontline teams. Ms Goward has faced sustained pressure over caseworker numbers across the state. At budget estimates in August, she denied any knowledge of the Ernst & Young report that contradicted her claims that the state had more than 2000 caseworkers when only 1797 positions had been filled. Mr Coutts-Trotter said he couldn't recall being told when he became director general this year that there been an overall decline in caseworker numbers by March 2013. The opposition has claimed Premier Barry O'Farrell is trying to protect Ms Goward after he announced last month that lower house ministers need not attend the inquiry.