After an Ofsted inspection in 2008 found the council was “underachieving”, SCC had faced an order from Ofsted to drive down the percentage of vacancies among its corps of children’s social workers from 28% to 14% within 12 months and to 12% within 18 months. The number of vacancies at that time was nearly 70, Dan Savage, SCC’s recruitment and training manager, told Recruiter.

The recruitment task force was set up to work with and guide the team managers in children’s social care in recruiting and assessing additional social workers within the children’s team. For about six months, SCC held assessment centres every fortnight with 10-15 candidates in attendance at each, along with four to six assessors in order to recruit the new staff.

The “highly controlled and managed way” in which the assessment centres were handled helped improve by “a significant change” the perception of the SCC’s employer brand, Savage said. The attraction strategy was also reviewed and improvements were made to the existing methods of search engine optimisation, pay-per-click online advertising, social media channels “and just getting our name out there”, he said.

Through the work of Savage and the dedicated recruitment task force, SCC achieved a 12% vacancy rate within 12 months, six months ahead of schedule. On 30 March, when Savage spoke to Recruiter, SCC’s vacancy rate for children’s social workers was down to 9%. The recruitment task force team working with the hiring managers in that area peaked at five in number. The task force remains in place, now with the equivalent of 3.5 full-time staff.

“The last thing we want to do is slip back,” Savage said.