Falling case loads, better management and improved training are all making Swindon a more attractive place for social workers.

And the director of children’s services at Euclid Street is going all out to convince more to become permanent staff.

There is a nationwide shortage of qualified and trained social workers, and that has, in the past, badly affected Swindon’s children’s services, which was told it had to improve by Ofsted in 2014.

The authority has 152 social workers, but only 64 of those are actually permanently employed by the local authority – the remaining 88, equivalent to 58 per cent, come from agencies.

But the top officer in charge, David Haley, is going all out to get more to sign up to become council employees – and was running a special day yesterday to try and encourage agency staff, or locums as they are known, to sign up.

He said: “One of the issues with having so many agency staff is that it costs us a lot more”. The extra costs in the last budget was £2.675 million.

“It has also led to too much change, so that children were not able to build a strong relationship with social workers if they were seeing three or more social workers a year.”

For some time, Mr Haley has been leading an effort to try and recruit and retain more social workers, whether staff or locums.

He said: "We are seeing people stay for longer already. One of the reasons is that we have invested in having more social workers – that means that case loads are lower and it means that both social workers and their managers are so overworked, they’re not so stressed.

“And it means that their performance is better and the outcomes for children are better.”

With agency social workers staying in Swindon for longer, Mr Haley is now pressing to get as many of them to become permanent staff.

He said: “Today’s event is the first one we have planned – we have a high proportion of our agency staff at it, and we’re talking to them about the advantages of becoming staff.

“One of the advantages of Swindon is we have the chief executive officer here sharing her vision for how Swindon will develop, so there’s a hearts and minds exercise, but there is our present offer as an employer as well.

“There’s an enhanced salary which is worth and extra £7,000 over three years, we are developing an academy of social work leadership and we have reviewed our practices so that the quality of performance of social workers and their managers is improved.”

“We’ve also been very clear that in Swindon we will be moving to have a majority of social workers as permanent staff, so for agency staff, this is a chance to become permanent.

“They know that if they stay as agency staff, in the end, they will be replaced by a permanent member of staff.”

Swindon Borough Council has recruitment adverts offering between £31,000 and £34,000 per year, depending on experience, for social workers.