SOCIAL work bosses in York want to offer “golden hello” and “golden handcuff” payments worth thousands of pounds as they manage major staffing problems in key children’s teams.

New starters could get £2,500 to take and stay in jobs at City of York Council, while staff already there would get the same amount, on top of their salaries, to stay in their jobs for two years.

Human resources bosses are urging councillors to agree to the scheme, even though it would cost £59,000 just to start, as they say the staff shortages in the critical Referral and Assessment (R&A) team need to be solved. The R&A service is the “front door” for anyone referred to children’s social care, and social workers in that team cope with a high-pressure environment, and deal with children who are at significant risk of harm.

It is the referral and assessment service’s job to decide what help, if any, children and families should get so the work has a direct impact on how well all children’s social care runs in York.

Out of the 18 full time positions the team should have, five are vacant and bosses have struggled for years to find enough qualified staff. A report prepared ahead of a council meeting next week shows between October 2015 and December 2016, they spent £7,800 trying to recruit staff on four occasions, with little success. Only three newly qualified social workers who were offered jobs in that time still work in the R&A team, it adds, while the one experienced staff member who was recruited quickly left for agency work.

With the five posts empty, bosses are having to rely on expensive and short term agency staff. They have already overspent by £36,000 in the first three months of this year, and are on course to break their budget by £156,000 - before any advertising or recruitment costs are taken into account - if the situation does not improve by the end of the year. Social work staff shortages are a national problem, the papers by HR managers Mark Bennett and Claire Waind say, and if York opted for golden hellos and handcuffs it would be following a path already taken in Sheffield, Rotherham, and Barnsley. The HR managers will be asking councillors to back their proposals at a meeting on Monday.