CABINET members at a Wiltshire Council have praised a council campaign to recruit more social workers despite still having more than 50 vacancies in children’s and adult services.

A £200,000 investment into the recruitment of social workers for children’s and adult services, which ran from August 2014 to April 2015, saw 425 applications, a 50 per cent increase on a previous campaign between November 2013 and April 2014.

However, in a report presented to cabinet today, written by head of HR Joanne Pitt, it stated that the council was unlikely to have a full set of permanently employed social workers and managers, with agency workers filling the short term gaps in the permanent workforce.

The report also warned that “a failure to recruit sufficient social workers poses risks to the health and wellbeing of the population and especially the vulnerable”.

Despite the warnings, cabinet member of health Stuart Wheeler said: “I want to congratulate HR, what we are seeing here are really good results based on proactive recruitment and innovative ideas to recruit candidates. It must be regarded as a success.”

With significant recruitment difficulties occurring throughout the country, the council has implemented a number of strategies to entice social workers to the area including an additional pay supplement for those in safeguarding and the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub.

The council has attempted to boost recruitment by developing a new social work recruitment microsite, redeveloping social media sites, placing a week-long editorial in The Guardian newspaper and attending the Compass Job Fair in London.

Laura Mayes, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “We have made 55 appointments in children’s services and have 36 vacancies remaining so we have made huge progress.

“I am delighted with the work HR has been doing but there is more work to do, we must keep up the momentum.”

As of March 2, Wiltshire Council had 425 applications across both children’s and adults services since the start of phase one with 75 candidates being offered and accepting a role.

In November 2014, the corporate leadership team, in consultation with cabinet, approved the recruitment of a further 27 social workers in the safeguarding and assessment teams within operational children’s services to reduce case loads.

Coun Jon Hubbard welcomed the decrease in the social worker case loads down to 18 per social worker from an average in the safeguarding and assessment teams of 27 cases per worker.

However, as of March 23, there remained 36 vacancies in children’s services, including 22 vacancies for social workers safeguarding and assessment and 17 vacancies in adult services.

The report stated that no further financial investment would be needed in the development of the systems to support this marketing, however, it is currently estimated that up to £100k extra investment may be required to fund the campaign for the next six months.