by Jess Banham

The backlog of cases at Kent's children's services should be cleared within weeks.

That's according to Councillor Jenny Whittle, Kent County Council's cabinet member for specialist children's services.

It comes after a cabinet scrutiny meeting at County Hall this week in which she reassured councillors that the department is making significant improvements.

Councillor Whittle said: "The figure for the number of children who haven't been allocated a social worker within 28 days is now down to 71.

"But obviously I'd like to get that down to zero.

"We're nearly there, with only 71 in the pipeline I think we're talking about a matter of weeks.

"Some of those cases will obviously need a high level of intervention and support but I can't say categorically until we've been through every case."

The council drafted in a 30-strong team of senior social workers to sift through outstanding case files in the wake of a damning Ofsted report.

KCC was ordered to improve its services for children at risk last year after the report said they were inadequate in almost every area.

" the answer lies in permanent appointments of staff” – keith ferrin

It then emerged that 2,700 cases referred to KCC had not been allocated a social worker.

Last month a former county councillor in charge of social services said KCC must be wary of "temporary solutions".

Councillor Keith Ferrin said: "The answer lies in permanent appointments of staff who are going to have to live with the decisions they take."

It's since been announced that golden hellos of £2,000 are to be offered to newly-qualified social workers who come to Kent to address the long-standing recruitment problem.

Councillor Whittle added: "We have managed to clear the backlog by employing an interim team of social workers for six months but what I need to do is make sure we have more permanent employees in place.

"I'm confident now with the new recruitment and golden hellos and the retention payments we have in place we'll be able to build up that permanent workforce to insure we can provide a consistent level of high quality support for vulnerable children and families."