5 October 2023

4 Steps Guest Blog: “In all good conscience, we cannot allow the support of vulnerable children to be devalued”

We refuse to accept that our children’s services staff are any less important than their adult counterparts, writes Cosgrove Care’s Depute Chief Executive Pauline Boyce

Cosgrove Care is proud to work with children and adults with learning disabilities, mental health issues, autism and other support needs. We want to see them thrive and grow, realise their human rights and live life to the full. We simply cannot do that without our dedicated, committed and skilled team. That means the direct support workers and their managers, in both our children’s and adult services.

In recent years the uplift in pay for adult social care staff has been welcome.  However, the consistent failure to equally value the children’s social care workforce has placed a significant financial burden on organisations such as ours, who refuse to accept that our children’s services staff are any less valuable than their adult counterparts.

How do you explain to a skilled support worker that, in the eyes of the powers that be, the work they do on a Monday morning, caring for a vulnerable adult at our wellbeing group, is of more value than the care and they provide at 3pm the same day, to a vulnerable child after school?

The answer is you do not. You simply cannot in good conscience allow the support of vulnerable children to be devalued. As an organisation you absorb the cost of increasing wages for children’s service staff, carrying an unsustainable financial burden.

The First Minister’s recent statement announcing an uplift to £12 an hour – which does appear to include both adult and children’s services staff – is again welcome. But it does not recognise the burden organisations such as ours have carried in the last few years supporting children’s services staff.

Equally, the provision of funding to increase the rate of pay for social care workers in direct care roles does not recognise the burden that we carry in maintaining a differential for our first and second level managers. It fails to value our team leaders and managers.

Are they less deserving of a pay increase? Are their families less deserving of their support? How do you explain to your managers that the work they do supporting staff, managing and deploying ever more stretched resources, all whilst ensuring quality services, are delivered and improving outcomes is of less value than direct support work?

The answer is you do not. You simply cannot in good conscience allow the support of your staff to be devalued. As an organisation you absorb the cost of increasing wages for front line managers, carrying an unsustainable financial burden.

If we are genuine about valuing social care, in recognising it as a worthwhile service and career we need to ensure funding increases value all aspects of the social care work force, without placing further burdens directly onto organisations.

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19 September 2023

4 Steps Guest Blog: “Our staff deserve recognition for their drive, passion and commitment”

Immediate action and appropriate funding is needed to ensure children’s social care services can deliver for their workforce as they deliver for Scotland’s children, argues Capability Scotland’s Ben Bradbury

Capability Scotland work with disabled children and their families across Edinburgh, Dundee, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire in a range of settings including holiday support, community services and residential care. We are committed to delivering outstanding care, support, and opportunities for the young people we work with and key to that is our workforce.

By their nature services for school age children and young people tend to have unusual working patterns. With children attending school during the week the support we offer is, with the exception of school holiday provision, in the evening or at weekends. This presents challenges to recruitment and retention of staff as the hours required of staff to deliver this support do not always sit comfortably alongside raising their own families or maintaining a healthy work life balance. In addition, the qualification and experience levels expected of staff in these services is often higher than in their adult equivalents, for example our day care of children registered managers must be qualified to degree level. There are good reasons for this, indeed we often work with some of the most vulnerable individuals in society, but it adds to the challenge of maintaining appropriate staffing levels of the required skill and competency.

In spite of these challenges our children’s services staff are enthusiastic, creative, playful and without exception go above and beyond to deliver exceptional services for the young people in their care. Whether it be attending training sessions at weekends to fit in with delivery of holiday support or working late on an evening to enable a trip to the cinema to take place we ask a lot of our teams, and they rise to the challenge.

However, since the pandemic an additional challenge has presented itself for organisations such as ours. The pandemic rightfully shone a light on the pay levels for social care staff, the response from the Scottish Government and local authorities has focused entirely on adult social care staff. The government, through the various Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs), has provided additional funds to raise the minimum rate of pay for staff in adult social care roles. These uplifts had the effect of keeping the minimum rate of pay for staff in adult services above the Scottish Living Wage throughout the pandemic and in line with the living wage in 2023.

Unfortunately, no such uplifts have been forthcoming for our children’s services. Unlike with adults, services for children and families tend to be commissioned by the local council rather than the HSCP. There has been no reciprocal offer from the Scottish Government for children’s services, the knock-on effect has been that many of our children’s services have had no universal uplift to the rates paid by local authorities during a period of high wage and price inflation. During this period Capability Scotland has met the cost of increasing wages for children’s service staff in line with their adult service counterparts. However, this state of affairs is not sustainable indefinitely.

If appropriate funding arrangements aren’t arrived at there will be negative consequences on our ability, and the ability of organisations like ours, to continue delivering high quality care and support for disabled children across Scotland. Much has been made of the need to support Fair Work practices across the public sector, as an employer we fully embrace this approach, and we believe our staff deserve recognition for their drive, passion and commitment. As an organisation we welcome the First Minister’s recent statement regarding an uplift to £12 an hour which appears to be inclusive of staff across both adult and children’s services. However, there remains much uncertainty about the timescales and mechanisms by which this will be delivered.

What is needed now is immediate action and appropriate funding to enable us to deliver for our staff as they deliver for Scotland’s children.

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