For many people, mention the London borough of Harrow, and the world-famous private school or Harrow Hill and its leafy vistas spring to mind.

But Paul Clark, Harrow's director of children's services, is familiarwith another side of the borough. "It's the eighth most diverse boroughin London," he says, "and although there may be well-off people livinghere, there are very serious areas of deprivation. As a result, likemost London boroughs, we're trying to focus our services."

Clark, who has been in his post for two years, was previously deputydirector for schools and families at Hertfordshire County Council. Hislong experience means he is clear about the recruitment challenges hefaces in Harrow. "There are particular issues for London, in that wehave a big mobile workforce," he says. "So you can have a zone one tothree or zone one to four travel card, which means you can live in oneborough and work somewhere else."

For Clark, this mobility means that staff have more control over theircareers; for example, giving more flexibility to move from job to job,to work for an agency or have a number of jobs in succession. What Clarkdubs a portfolio career has proved popular in the capital.

However, as he points out: "By employing agency workers, councils notonly pay a lot more, there's also an incredibly high turnover of staff.This then costs more in induction and training, and there isn't thecontinuity of work."

Clark cites "qualified and experienced" social workers, speech andlanguage therapists, educational psychologists, and nursing staff asscarce. It's not all bad news, though: "It wasn't so long ago thatteachers were a very scarce commodity, but the efforts made to promoteteaching as a positive career have helped," he explains.

Similar efforts to promote careers in children's services are apparentin Harrow. Clark reveals that the borough is trying hard to employ morepermanent staff. To this end, the authority is about to increase thesalaries for qualified and experienced children's social workers, a movethat will position Harrow in the top quartile for London.

The council is also considering doing away with bonuses paid for longservice, and using the cash to top up basic pay across the board.

It is trying to "improve" workloads too. By this, Clark means workloadsshould not be too big. More importantly, the council is working onoffering a greater quality and quantity of professional supervision.

To this end, Harrow has recently produced a guide on research andevidence-based practice, and is running staff seminars on the topic."We're trying to help support employees, as well as delivering financialawards," he explains. "People obviously come to an authority becausethey're looking to maximise a salary, but they also want to feelvalued."

As a result, Harrow's approach can be summed up as "multi layered".

But Clark is also a man who knows the value of simple things. Forinstance, the council's children's services reception has recently beenrefurbished and there are improved staff facilities in the offices,creating what he calls a "decent place to go for lunch and take timeout".

Clark is the first to admit though that a lick of paint is not a magicbullet. Instead, he points to Harrow's most valuable asset - itsworkforce.

"Advertising costs (for jobs) are rising, agency costs are going up andbudgets are under pressure. You need to make the best use of what you'vegot, and if you've got 200 staff working for you, then they're it."

Clark points to word of mouth as an excellent - and undervalued -recruitment tool. "London is a huge city," he explains, "but it's also aglobal village. People talk, and our best ambassadors are our currentstaff."

Things in Harrow are good, he says. "Schools are excellent, integratedchildren's services are very good, and there are good relationshipsbetween social care and health. But it's still a borough making its way.We're going for change, and we're a council working hard at improvingits services."

One way in which Clark and his team are trying to improve services is byoffering children's professionals who want varied careers broaderopportunities.

Harrow's newest residential home for looked-after children typifies thismixed-up approach, as the workforce will not only comprise socialworkers, but youth workers will also be involved. As well as helping toengage young people, this fluidity enables staff to become involved inall areas of children's services.

For Clark, the opportunities for staff to work between health, educationand social work settings must be maximised. "People want to have a broadexperience. You might not want to do a job as a child outreach workerfor three years, because it's very demanding," he says. "Ultimately,it's about investing in our assets - and our biggest asset is ourworkforce."

CASE STUDY - Harrow Corporate University

Harrow Corporate University is based on a model that was pioneered bythe multinational car part manufacturer Unipart.

Launched in May, the initiative will be developed over the next threeyears to provide learning and development to the council's workforce, aswell as local employers and residents.

This also means the council can become a work-based learning provider inits own right, accessing funding from the Learning and Skills Council todeliver an apprenticeship programme for young people.

The scheme will begin as a series of pilots based on topics such asinduction and basic skills, targeting employees who do not participatein formal learning.

However, training around major areas of change including Every ChildMatters will follow, and multi-agency collaboration, for example withprimary care trusts and further education colleges, is also planned.

RECRUITMENT CENTREOrganisation: Barnet CouncilCampaign: Like the new BarnetAgency: Tribal

Campaign aims: When Tony Nakhimoff, divisional manager for improvingservices in the children and families team, joined Barnet Council threeyears ago, the looked-after children population was rocketing and therewas a projected 5.6m overspend.

"We had to do something radical, because if we carried on doing nothingor tinkering with the situation, nothing was going to change," he says.As a result, a three-pronged strategy was developed, comprising aradical new recruitment campaign, a trainee social worker programme, andan investigation into how best to retain staff.

The solution

As part of a restructuring of the children and families service, thecouncil held a number of staff focus groups in conjunction withrecruitment agency Tribal. "We asked what is it you like about Barnet,what don't you like, what would make you stay, and why have peopleleft?"

Nakhimoff also realised he had to do something different with itsadvertising.

"Every ad out there looked the same, and we wanted to say we weredifferent," he says. Also we didn't want to be po-faced and worthy;while we understand that social work can be difficult, we still have asense of humour. We felt that's what the Like the new Barnet campaigndid."

Armed with the inside knowledge of what staff wanted and a campaigntheme, Nakhimoff and Tribal got to work devising ads, which wouldreflect the borough's multi-ethnic population while promoting Barnet asan employer of choice. Using statements like "Fringe benefits" and "Acut above the rest", alongside a diverse range of hair styles, Barnetwent live with its campaign in May 2003.

It also decided to back up the launch with a dedicated web site. "Wehave got the only dedicated children and families recruitment web sitein London," claims Nakhimoff. "And while the site was a leap of faithfor us, we wanted to adopt a modern customer-care approach to thebusiness of recruitment."

The future

The campaign has now been running for more than two years, althoughNakhimoff and his team have a campaign meeting every three months withTribal to ensure the ideas and images stay fresh.

For instance, the council has just launched its New job, new Barnetinitiative as the next stage in the campaign. "The idea," saysNakhimoff, "is to say to potential employees, 'come to Barnet and we'llgive you a 150 makeover with a London salon-trainedstylist'."

And while Nakhimoff is adamant that "no whizzy campaign or web site isgoing to completely solve recruitment problems," they sure have helpedas vacancy rates for frontline social workers now stand at a healthyfour per cent, while the team has saved in excess of 1m.