Concerns have been raised by councillors about how quickly social workers in Wokingham file reports following casework.

This comes after a report from the council recommended that social workers ensure the “chronologies need to be up to date for all cases”.

Carol Cammiss, director of children’s services at Wokingham Borough Council (WBC), said: “We meet regularly each week so we know which social workers’ records are out of date.

“This gives us some idea of where action is required on a week-by-week basis.”

The director claimed backlogs occurred because of the increase in demand the council has faced in recent months.

In November, the News reported that social workers in the borough saw a staggering 246 per cent increase in the number of children who needed child protection plans from March 2017 to September 2018.

Cammiss continued: “We have struggled to meet the demand given we have not had an increase in the number of social workers to meet the demand.

“What goes first is that recording, because the social workers want to see the children.

“This doesn’t mean we accept this as being good enough. But we do have to accept that there has been a massive increase in demand.

“We will see progress. We have lots of different ways to assess this rather than just reports. We are being very direct.”

A report from a meeting of councillors showed that the rate at which children’s social workers leave the council’s workforce and are then replaced rose from 24 per cent to 28 per cent up to September 2018.

The council’s target is currently 16 per cent, meaning the authority is finding it hard to make sure social workers stay at children’s services for a longer duration of time.

However, councillor Pauline Helliar-Symons, the executive member for children’s services at WBC, outlined a number of ways in which the council is hoping to attract and retain social workers to the borough.

She said: “We are in the process of equipping more of our social workers with tablets (to file reports) instead of having to come back to the office. It must be very frustrating to be behind.

“We have engaged with a recruitment company and they do promise they will help us a great deal to recruit staff.

“We have someone coming in from Oxford Brookes University to talk to social workers about what is important to them and why they should stay in Wokingham.

“We are thinking about offering key worker housing to them too.

“The more social workers we have, the lower the caseload. The higher it is, the more likely they are to go somewhere else.”