Social workers in Caerphilly County Borough will receive additional pay in response to a recruitment and retention crisis.
Caerphilly Council’s cabinet have unanimously approved a market supplement of £3,227 for every employee within the six children’s services locality teams.
A market supplement is a one-off lump sum which is added to a job’s basic salary to bring it up to the market rate.
Councillors also agreed to use reserves to fund the recruitment of four extra social workers and an independent reviewing officer to meet workload demands.
Some staff have opted to transfer to posts in other service areas within the council due to pressure of children’s services work.
The number of children in council care has increased by 105 in the past 12 months, the equivalent caseloads of at least four social workers.
The authority has also struggled to offer competitive pay within the sector, with its starting salary for social workers being the lowest in the Gwent region.
Social workers starting out in Newport and Monmouthshire earn the same amount as the highest paid staff in Caerphilly.
In the last two years Caerphilly council put out 25 adverts for social worker posts, of which three were re-advertised due to low interest, and seven failed to recruit.
Last July, the council’s cabinet approved the recruitment of two extra social workers to support increased court pressures but have been unable to fill the roles.
A council report says: “The recruitment of social workers across south Wales is highly competitive and Caerphilly’s position in the market is no longer strong enough to attract applications.
“Over half the staff leaving have cited remuneration as the critical factor, and when staff can be paid £3,000 more in another local authority for doing the same job, it is hard to argue.”
But cabinet members met on Wednesday to approve the use of £338,66 from social services reserves to fund the market supplement and new roles.
Councillor Carl Cuss, cabinet member for social care and wellbeing, said the market supplement would “go a long way” for those working within one of the most “challenging” areas of social services.
“I’ve visited all locality teams and even though we’ve got dedicated staff, there was some concern over salary,” said Cllr Cuss.
“One team had more agency staff than permanent staff, which is a concern and can’t be sustainable, but an advantage we’ve got is that the support network around them is fantastic.
“The service managers are working extremely hard with them. Social workers have worked in other authorities and felt at risk, but not here.”