Responding to today’s announcement from the UK Government on immigration, CCPS’s CEO Rachel Cackett said:

“Building on messaging shared with the media by the Home Secretary over the weekend, this morning the Prime Minister announced a new white paper aimed at cutting levels of immigration into the UK.

Proposals to include the scrapping of visas for new social care workers will inflict further damage on a sector already deeply weakened by decades of underinvestment and now contending with the impact of increased employers’ National Insurance contributions.

The 2023 Social Care Benchmarking in Scotland report found that frontline posts were extremely difficult to fill, with 95% of respondents experiencing difficulties in recruiting operations staff.

Blocking routes for skilled and committed workers from abroad to be employed in social care and support in the UK, when we know so many providers are struggling to recruit and retain staff, is a retrograde step.

We are also deeply concerned by the rhetoric underlying the announcement today. Implying that support staff are ‘lower skilled workers’ is misinformed, disparaging of UK workers and deeply damaging  to the government’s own policy intent.

Over many years CCPS’s members have tirelessly highlighted that social care staff are highly skilled and regulated practitioners required to hold professional qualifications.

In Scotland, the reality is that low pay in the sector is not down to employers but to rates of pay for social care staff set by government; rates that utterly fail to recognise the professionalism of support workers.

If governments in Westminster or Holyrood want to attract more UK citizens into care and support roles they need to convey the worth of these crucial staff by paying a salary commensurate with the skills and responsibilities of the profession.

They must also radically alter their language to demonstrate the respect rightfully due to essential key workers. And they must ensure that people who are vulnerable and need support can receive it, when it is needed, from skilled, regulated staff – including from overseas when the UK labour market simply cannot meet need.

Whatever the political calculation behind today’s UK announcement, it has demonstrated a profound disregard for the contribution of the social care workforce – and ultimately, a depressing devaluing of the people they support.”

“There is a crisis going on in social care right now and immediate action is needed – otherwise we won’t have a sector to reform.

Nothing else in today’s statement in parliament about the National Care Service reflected the reality of that crisis, and none of what was said changes the status quo.

We urgently need the Scottish Government to recognise and get to grips with the level of risk currently faced by providers and, by extension, the people they support across Scotland.

While we were pleased to see the commitments made on enshrining Anne’s Law and breaks for unpaid carers, we are frustrated that so much well-intentioned work on the NCS over the past three years appears to have been for nothing.

However, we remain committed to working with the Scottish Government on the reform that’s desperately needed. This can include collaborating with them on the shape and remit of the proposed Advisory Board.

But we need to see a change in culture whereby recommendations made by experts in the sector, in good faith, are acted upon and put into practice rather than overlooked.

The reform agenda, including on the vital issue of sectoral bargaining, must keep moving, driven by the innovative thinking and solutions of social care providers.

And on the political front, with the 2026 Scottish election in sight, all parties need to think hard about the solutions they can offer for social care.”

So. The budget.

As the dust settles and we all get our head around the implications of Rachel Reeves’ speech, what’s emerging is a pretty mixed picture – but one issue is causing deep consternation among the not-for-profit providers of social care I represent.

But let’s start with two positives – albeit qualified positives.

Overall, the austerity message has been very slightly tempered by some positive, discrete changes, such as revisions to Universal Credit debt deductions (though the two child cap remains, of course). But there are department cuts to come, pressures on benefits and on other areas which will put significant pressure on family finances.

The news of an increase to the Scottish block grant this year and next is, of course, incredibly welcome. Now we need to see the Scottish Government make some wise choices and focus on the sectors that will actually help it deliver its own priorities before the 2026 election. In a week in which local headlines in the Scottish capital are writing large the perilous position of third sector organisations in our integrated health and care sector, the urgency of this couldn’t be clearer.

We want to see a fair, progressive settlement for social care and support in the 2025-26 Scottish Budget. The government needs this for a healthy civic society and economy.  It needs a healthy social care sector to stop the NHS falling over any further (as I know many NHS leaders recognise). The government needs a well-resourced social care sector to deliver on the rights-based society it has promised citizens. And at the heart of this is a much-needed fair wage settlement for staff, so CCPS providers have a hope of recruiting and retaining the skilled people needed to deliver crucial support to people and families. Talk to us and our partners about directing additional service-focused funds to best effect. We can help make it work.

And this brings me to my final point.

CCPS members are not-for-profit organisations delivering public services, mostly funded by the public purse. Yet it seems – though this is all a bit murky just now – that the relief being proposed for the public sector for the hike in employers’ National Insurance does not extend to the charities I represent. Messages of panic started coming to me almost as soon as the Chancellor sat down. CCPS members are already seeing swathing cuts to funding that was already too little; these are organisations where over 80% have reported delivering public services on deficit budgets. Ultimately, this means that fewer of the most vulnerable people in our society receive the services they need, and human and financial costs rack up.

Adding the double whammy announcement yesterday of increased employer NI contributions and a reduction in the NI threshold will be catastrophic for CCPS members and many other charities, unless some form of exemption is set or contracts are increased to fully fund the policy.

So this is a plea to both the Chancellor and Scottish Ministers. Please, please work together now to ensure that a social care sector that is already at breaking point is not sunk by baking in inequities in the application of NI relief.

Let’s not see the increased block grant – that could do so much – having to be eaten up by reversing the negative impact of this NI policy. Civic society – and the people it serves – must be respected as an equal partner in public service.

Because let’s be honest: you really can’t afford not to, and nor can the people in our communities who need support.