Nearly 300 applicants for jobs at Kent County Council were offered ‘golden hellos’ to take up roles with the authority at a cost of more than £600,000 over two years, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

The bulk of what are termed ‘hard to fill’ posts were for jobs in children’s social services - where the additional pressures of dealing with child asylum seekers are well documented and have led the authority to take the government to court.

Under the council's "market premium" policy, of the overall number of 294 taken on by KCC, 236 - more than 80% - were for positions as children social workers. Premiums accounted for £518,560 of the overall sum of £627,459.

Of the remainder, 50 staff were offered additional pay for taking up posts looking after vulnerable adults at a cost of £86,422 over two years.

Under the council’s policy, market premiums should only be offered in ‘exceptional circumstances’ and where they are, other employees on the same pay grade may be eligible for the same sums.

Some senior staff can get as much as £4,000 under the market premium scheme by way of an up-front 'golden hello' while others can be offered an additional £3,000 under the council's retention programme. These are usually split into twice-yearly payment of £1,500

It also requires managers to establish evidence of “pay-related recruitment and retention difficulties” against a range of indicators.

"Our experience would suggest that applying market premiums has helped in the recruitment of social workers..."

These include an “abnormally high turnover rate for the role” and the number of responses to job advertisements.

A statement from the council said: "The purpose of the Social Worker Market Premium is to ensure that our reward package is competitive and enables us to recruit and retain staff in our most critical and demanding roles and teams.

“We have a range of pay, terms and conditions and benefits that are designed to achieve this, market premiums being one. Our analysis would suggest that Kent is broadly competitive in this specialist recruitment area when considered with the market premium payments.

“Whilst proximity to London will be a factor – particularly an ability to encourage those in London to work in the east of the county. The more general issue and challenge is the one of the ‘south east’ and one shared with other authorities in the region given the higher housing and living costs.

“Our experience would suggest that applying market premiums has helped in the recruitment of social workers, certainly at a basic level in an ability to attract suitable interest in working in the county.

“The premium is a combination of recruitment and service based payments, applied consistently across all the specific employees, thereby limiting any “division” of new and existing staff. Our aim is to recruit but equally retain our social workers in a very competitive market.”

The leader of Kent County Council recently acknowledged that social workers were taking on higher caseloads than many other areas.

Cllr Roger Gough said some social workers' caseloads were close to twice the average because of the pressures caused by dealing with escalating numbers of child asylum seekers.

In a sign of the difficult recruitment environment, agencies are offering “tip” fees of up to £250 to potential social work employees who may not be interested in particular vacancies but know somebody who might.

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