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Steps towards collaboration between London boroughs to tackle the social care recruitment crisis were set in motion at a major symposium last week.

Hosted by Community Care as part of its Care in the Capital Week initiative, which focused attention on the shortage of social care workers in London, the event brought together leading figures from a wide range of social care agencies.

Participants agreed that collaboration between the 33 London boroughs and with the NHS workforce development confederations was key to tackling the recruitment crisis.

David Behan, senior vice-president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, said that if councils collaborated more and competed less, the situation would improve.

Anthony Douglas, executive director of community services at Havering Council and author of a major report on the recruitment and retention of social care workers in London released to launch Care in the Capital (news, page 6, 20 June), argued for a co-ordinated approach with the NHS.

"The London boroughs, through the Association of London Government and the Social Services Inspectorate, need to introduce some funding into recruitment and retention work," said Douglas. He suggested that £5,000-£10,000 from each London borough would begin to produce an overall budget.

Alison de Metz, who leads on social care issues in London for the Soccial Services Inspectorate, said any strategy to tackle social care recruitment and retention needed to focus on partnership with the NHS. Janice Robinson, director of health and social care at the King's Fund, argued that social care leaders needed to show the NHS workforce development confederations - which conduct workforce planning for the health service - "the win-win of collaboration" with social care.

Robinson added that the pay issue had to be tackled. She suggested examining ways of recruiting and retaining older workers.

Symposium participants said good staff were lost when they reached the retirement age of 65. Behan outlined how home care workers were retiring from local authorities, but wanted to continue working so they joined agencies that then sent them back to work for their old employer.

Trish Stratford, managing director of the Celsian recruitment agency, argued that the whole of the public sector had to be made more appealing. "If you are going to retain these people in social work, you have got to allow them to practise in the area that they trained in and take away some of the bureaucracy," she said.

The symposium heard how retaining staff was as much of a problem as recruiting them. Behan outlined how social workers were moving between boroughs and in and out of the voluntary sector. In response, de Metz proposed honorary contract arrangements between boroughs to allow staff to move to other jobs in neighbouring councils and return without their authority incurring any cost.

- Care in the Capital Week is supported by Celsian.

Haringey introduces pay differentials

Haringey social services department is widening the pay difference between social workers in children and family services and those working with adults.

The move is part of a £3.5m package announced by the council to recruit and retain staff by making them among the best paid in the country. Newly qualified social workers in the children and family service will receive a £2,000 rise and team leaders will receive £4,000 extra.

The widening pay difference means that newly qualified staff working with children will earn £1,000 more than those working with adults and older people.

The difference will increase to more than £3,000 for those with two years' post-qualification experience and £5,000 for practice managers.

Haringey is also reintroducing the "senior practitioner" grade to encourage experienced staff to continue in practice rather than moving into management.

Difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff were identified by the Social Services Inspectorate as partially to blame for past failures in social services. The situation had worsened because of the fallout from the Victoria Climbie Inquiry.

A council spokesperson said: "We are very aware that there could be resentment from staff in adult services and we will be working to see what we can offer those staff. Pay is just part of a package, which includes guaranteed study leave."