Too many children in Swindon are being shuttled between care placements.

And too many are seeing their social workers come and go.

One of the issues councillors were told is that there is a nationals shortage of trained social workers and Swindon Council finds it hard to recruit and keep them.

Written answers to a question raised earlier this month by Coun Jim Robbins said that 22 children looked after by Swindon Borough Council have experienced three different placements between April and September this year.

The answer continued: "If performance continues at this rate 14 per cent will have experienced three or more placement moves during 2018-19. This places Swindon higher than other local authorities as the national average is 10."

Another answer showed that nearly a quarter of the children looked after by the council have had three or more social workers managing their case during 206-17 - the latest year where data is available.

Thirty children had three workers, 28 had four and 12 fade five with three having six and two seven or more. That's a total of 75 out of 326 children in the council's care at the end of March 2017.

A quarter of children experienced no social worker changes, but that's significantly lower than the national average which is 33.6 per cent

At the authority's scrutiny committee meeting Coun Robbins said: " I'm concerned about the number of children having their social workers changed in a year. I don't think we can honestly say we are keeping these children safe when the people employed to keep them safe change so regularly."

He asked council leader David Renard: "When do we get to the point when we don't have any children having seen or more social worker or placement changes?"

Coun Renard said: "Seven different social workers for one child in a year is totally unacceptable. I'm confident we have a plan in place to get us to that point - but I can't give a time I'm afraid."

Director of children's services at Euclid Street David Haley said there was a national shortage of social workers.

He said: "We have restructured children's services to reduce the case load on social workers and separated teams for child protection and looked after children. When they were combined child protection issues tended to get priority."

A recent recruitment campaign saw 32 applications for staff positions.