Media Release: Over 80 Scottish social care leaders sign letter urging Chancellor to change course on National Insurance

“This policy will not save public services. It will crush them”

More than 80 not-for-profit social care organisations have signed a letter from the Coalition of Care & Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) to the Chancellor urging her to provide relief on increased Employers’ National Insurance bills for them as providers of crucial public services.

Read the letter to the Chancellor

The letter, from CCPS members, makes clear the devastating impact the policy would have on organisations providing social care, and on people receiving support.

CCPS estimates that not-for-profit social care providers will face an additional bill in the region of £30 million next year to cover both the NI rate increase and the threshold reduction – money that providers do not have, and have no means to raise.

The signatory organisations span all aspects of not-for-profit provision in Scotland for adults, children and young people.

Rachel Cackett, CEO of the Coalition of Care & Support Providers in Scotland, said:

“As the representative voice for the sector, and on behalf of our community of providers, we’ve written to the Chancellor to make absolutely clear the existential threat this policy poses to not-for-profit social care, and the wider consequences it would have.

“The relief apparently being offered by the Chancellor to the public sector quite simply fails to recognise the reality of contemporary public services. Our providers deliver public services, largely through publicly funded contracts with the public sector.

“The eNIC policy is being introduced at a time when social care providers are already at extreme risk. In March this year, over 80% of our members who responded to a survey told us they were delivering public contracts despite a deficit budget.

“And as our letter states, these pressures are not limited to Scotland; the effects of long-standing under-investment in support services are being felt across the UK. Social care is pared to the bone.

“How can the UK Government claim that those with the broadest shoulders should pay more when this policy will impact not-for-profit organisations supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our society?”

“Services cannot continue if they are not financially viable. This policy will impact jobs – particularly for women – and risk the loss of crucial community-based provision for people who desperately need more well-resourced, rights-based, accessible, quality support.”

She added:

“We urge the Chancellor to provide relief at source to providers, with a recognition that not doing so will devastate public services, including those provided by the senior leaders who have signed this letter – services which  are central to the UK Government’s ambitions.”

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Rachel Cackett is available for media interviews today (Friday 29th November).
Senior leaders from organisations in CCPS’s membership will also be available by request.

Media contacts: Chris Small chris.small@ccpscotland.org
and Anna Tully anna.tully@ccpscotland.org

Notes for editors

CCPS is the voice of the not-for-profit social care providers in Scotland. Our vision is for people and communities to thrive with the support of a rights-based, sustainable system of social care and support.

More information here.