WORK is underway to plug gaps in Renfrewshire Council’s children’s social work team as it contends with a recruitment crisis.

The development comes after it was revealed staff shortages are at their highest level in a decade in a startling report.

A host of challenges — including “professional isolation” and supporting inexperienced staff — were outlined in a Covid recovery plan, which was discussed in the chambers on Thursday.

The demands of the job are usually mitigated by “close bonds” with colleagues but the pandemic has disrupted this, meaning even the most experienced staff have found circumstances “overwhelming”.

John Trainer, the council’s head of child care and criminal justice, conceded the department is “concerned” about the staffing pressures in Renfrewshire.

He told the Education and Children’s Services Policy Board: “The issue of social work recruitment’s a national issue.

“I’m not going to use that as an excuse, because obviously we are concerned about the position within Renfrewshire.

“The turnover in children’s social work over the last two years has been higher than we’ve ever experienced in the 30-odd years that I’ve been around in social work. What we’ve tried to do is mitigate that as much as possible.”

Mr Trainer said that previously the council has had a “grow your own campaign”, in which staff are supported to undertake university training to become a qualified social worker.

It is a strategy that is under consideration again but one that he conceded “doesn’t give you a quick fix” due to the time of study.

He confirmed the current staffing picture means there is a growing burden on the more experienced members of the team.

Mr Trainer added: “In terms of managing the current work, our vacancies were as high as 33 per cent. We’re currently down just over 10 per cent. That’s not a good place. We don’t want to be at 10 per cent, we want to recruit. We’ve got recruitment ongoing.

“Many of them are newly qualified social workers, so that does place a demand on our more experienced colleagues, but it also places a demand on our first line managers — the senior social workers who carry, at the moment, considerably more work than we would want them to have.

“So, throughout the whole team we are probably all carrying a bit more of a burden that we would like, but we do work to make sure that every single child in Renfrewshire who needs a social worker actually has one.”