JUST three social workers have started work in Dorset since figures revealed one in four posts were vacant.

The Dorset Echo reported at the end of September how an issue with staffing in children’s services had reportedly left social workers demoralised and struggling to cope.

But there is hope on the horizon as the county council said 17 new social workers are expected to start work soon.

In September there were 38 vacancies in 163 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. Now, there are fewer FTE positions – 158.5 – with 35.5 FTE vacancies. It means that more than one in five positions are still vacant.

The county council said in September that agency staff are being used to ensure staffing remains at a safe level, and that they were working hard to plug the gaps.

Commenting on the up-to-date figures Sara Tough, Dorset County Council’s director of children’s services, said: “We have been actively working to recruit children’s social workers during the past year, including national promotion of opportunities to work in children’s social care in Dorset. This culminated in a recruitment open day at the end of 2016 and we are following up with another event in February. 

“We are making progress, having recently appointed 17 new social workers who will be starting in the next few months, which will reduce our total number of vacancies significantly. We are continuing to receive new applications.

“We are absolutely committed to improving the lives of children and young people in Dorset. We are four months on from strengthening our social care arrangements and are investing in developing our workforce to help them make a difference.”

Children’s services underwent a restructuring last year, but the county council said that the high number of vacancies in the department ‘was not directly related to the restructure’. 

A micro-site has been set up to try to attract more social workers to the county.

Amanda Brown, branch secretary for Unison, said in September that the last few months had been the ‘toughest time for social work staff’ in a quarter of a century. She added that case loads were ‘horrendous’.