"These people have got it sussed; I want to go and work for them." It might sound like music to a social services director's ears, but it's exactly what one prospective employee was heard saying to a friend on the phone a few weeks ago, after a successful recruitment evening for social workers at Barnet Council in north London.
"That's just what I wanted to hear," explains Tony Nakhimoff, service improvement manager at Barnet Council, who was on the same train as the future employee. "It made me sure that what we'd been doing was right."
Like many local authorities throughout the country - particularly in London - Barnet was facing a crisis in its social services department, especially in its children and families' division. Across England, the vacancy rate for qualified social workers stands at 11 per cent, whereas in London it's 20 per cent. And 18 months ago, Barnet had 23 per cent of its children's social worker positions unfilled.
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