11 July 2023

Media Release: Report reveals reality of staffing crisis in social care, with more than half of those moving jobs last year leaving the sector

Scale of challenges facing providers uncovered in new study of workforce benchmarking

Social care and support providers in Scotland are struggling with a loss of staff, with an average of 52% of those moving jobs last year leaving the social care sector altogether, according to a new report.

In the study of workforce benchmarking in the sector, almost three quarters of surveyed organisations reported a significant rise in staff turnover in 2021-22.

Seventy-three per cent of organisations delivering social care said their staff turnover rate had increased since 2020-21 – a jump of 14% in a single year and an indication of year-on-year rises in social care staff moving jobs.

Responses captured in the 2022 Social Care Benchmarking Report demonstrate the scale of sector-wide recruitment, retention and staffing challenges organisations are experiencing now.

The Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) and the HR Voluntary Sector Forum (HRVSF) commissioned the University of Strathclyde to conduct the benchmarking survey and analysis for member organisations.

The Executive Summary of the report is published today and is available to download here.

The study also found:

  • Average turnover across respondents was 25%, an increase of 5.5% from the figure reported in 2020-2021.
  • Fifty-nine percent of respondents noted an increase in their use of agency staff (the most expensive staffing option) – building on the 45% who had noted an increase in agency use the previous year.
  • Eighty-one percent of respondents reported that their recruitment needs were higher than in the previous year, an increase of 6% from the 2020-2021 Benchmarking Report figure of 75%.
  • On anticipated future recruitment needs, 46% of respondents reported that they expect hiring staff will involve more difficulty and 54% projected the same difficulty.

Rachel Cackett, Chief Executive of CCPS, said: 

“The headline results of this benchmarking survey are stark and confirm what our provider organisations have been telling us over the past year: retention and recruitment of staff is the dominant issue in a sector that is under intense pressure.

“It’s a situation that has only worsened since this data for 2022 was captured, as differences in pay between not-for-profit social care providers and the public sector have widened yet further.

“This report points to an exit of staff across organisations, resulting in a loss of current expertise; a loss of potential talent; and a massive undermining of key services.

“It’s a loss that has an impact on achieving what we all want to see: people thriving by getting the support they need at the right times and in the right places, with consistent relationships at the heart of that support.

“This is the reason we’ve launched our 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign, which calls on the Scottish Government to take the measures long needed to deliver on investment and reform and set the sector on the route to Fair Work.

“We want to see social care organisations hold on to their workforce, to have the resources to develop their people – and for their staff to finally be fairly recognised and rewarded for their public service.”

Kevin Staunton, Chair of the HR Voluntary Sector Forum, said: 

“As Chair of the Forum, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our members who were able to participate in the survey this year.

“For years our sector has heard many warm words about parity of esteem and being seen as an equal and key partner in the delivery of social care in Scotland. This report, building on previous years’ results, provides a strong and indisputable evidence base that the reality our people experience on a day-to-day basis is very much different and the sector cannot continue to operate on the goodwill and unfulfilled aspirations of our workforce indefinitely.

“I hope that in a year’s time positive progress has been made to make the investment and reform which has often been spoken about become a reality. Our Forum members welcome the opportunity to work positively with others to make this happen. The people we support and the people our organisations employ deserve better.”

(ends)

Media contact:
Chris Small: chris.small@ccpscotland.org.uk

Notes for editors

  • The HR Voluntary Sector Forum (HRVSF) and Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) commissioned the University of Strathclyde to conduct the benchmarking survey and analysis for member organisations.
  • With thanks to the team at the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Work, Employment & Organisation and their colleagues at the universities of St Andrews and Middlesex.
  • The study involved 26 participant organisations, 73% of which provided social care primarily to adults. Housing support for adults formed the largest proportion of services (40%), followed by support services for adults (34%).
  • 4 Steps to Fair Work: find out more about the CCPS campaign
  • Attached 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign image by Ross Richardson – please credit the illustrator if used in print or online.
  • CCPS is the voice of the not-for-profit social care providers in Scotland. More information here.
  • The HR Voluntary Sector Forum (HRVSF) is a CIPD special interest group of third sector organisations and individuals. The Forum supports practice and information sharing alongside commissioning research relevant to the third sector workforce to inform and influence national decision-making.

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7 July 2023

4 Steps Guest Blog: “It’s too easy to think that social care is about someone else. It’s about all of us”

Providers must have better resourcing to reflect the societal importance of our work in communities across Scotland, says Andrew Thomson, Deputy CEO of Carr Gomm

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others“.

George Orwell’s fusion of political and artistic purpose was always intended to have a wider application than simple political satire. Social care in Scotland can often feel ripe for satire, although there is nothing funny about systematic underappreciation and underfunding.

Inelegant tension exists throughout, and remains inexplicably embedded in, our system. The maxim from improvement science states that “every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets”, and we have a system that Derek Feeley describes as containing “unwarranted local variation, crisis intervention, a focus on inputs, a reliance on the market, and an undervalued workforce”.

Scottish Government policy sets the minimum adult social care wage. The Scottish Government and CoSLA decide the financial uplifts to cover the costs of the policy. Social care providers implement the policy and volubly articulate again the wider implications, failings, and consequences of the policy. We’ll do it all again next time too. Our system is designed to aggregate the underfunding and to ignore the cost-of-living crisis; we get poorer each time we go around. There is no sign of the powerful recognising that the social care system is increasingly unsustainable.

The Scottish Government has set the wage at £10.90/hr, or 104% of the statutory minimum wage. The Scottish Government sets the value of working in our sector. Practitioners working for local authorities or the NHS are excluded from the Government’s policy and are paid more than 20% more for undertaking equal work. All practitioners are equal, but…

It feels like a lifetime ago that we clapped our hands on a Thursday night in acknowledgement of the essential work undertaken by key workers as Covid ravaged our lives and freedoms. We recognised the importance in society of those that care for others. It is too easy to think that social care is about someone else, but social care is relevant to our colleagues, our friends and families, our neighbours. Ourselves.

Every one of us has the right to live a full life. And every one of us should have the right to be supported by a practitioner that has been comprehensively inducted, continually developed, registered with a professional body, professionally qualified, scrutinised by an external regulator, and appropriately remunerated. We have all of the former, we simply need to recognise – as Feeley already has – the latter: that our workforce is undervalued.

As a first step, the First Minister has committed to raising the wages of frontline adult social care professionals to £12/hr. It’s a small step on the road towards appropriate remuneration, although thus far, the Scottish Government has not published a timeline and so we wait. I call on the First Minister to implement this improvement from 1 April 2023.

The oft-quoted, lazy narrative about social care is that it is broken. But Carr Gomm is not broken. The people we support are not broken. We simply need better resourcing to adequately reflect the societal importance of our essential work in communities throughout Scotland.

Andrew Thomson is Deputy Chief Executive of Carr Gomm, a leading social care and community development that supports over 3000 people a week across Scotland.

Find out more about our 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign and get involved.

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29 June 2023

News: 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign launched to bring step change in social care

New CCPS campaign amplifies voices of sector and civic society, urging the Scottish Government to pledge to invest and give hope of equality

The Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland today launches a national campaign calling on the Scottish Government to deliver Fair Work for Scotland’s not-for-profit social care staff.

The campaign draws on evidence from CCPS’s membership organisations about the acute pressures currently being faced by their services as a result of the Scottish Government’s base pay rate for staff of £10.90, which is leading to staff leaving the workforce and many services being jeopardised.

The initiative aims to influence Scottish Government to take 4 Steps to Fair Work for social care staff and announce a timetable for investment. The 4 Steps are:

1. Deal with pay inequality: As a first step, implement the promise of a minimum of £12 per hour for social care staff, starting from 1 April 2023.

2. Ensure equal pay for equal work: Apply pay uplifts to staff in all services, not just those in registered adult social care.

3. Value all staff who play their part: Deliver funding packages that value the crucial role of support staff and managers, alongside frontline workers.

4. Give us hope of equality: Publish a timetable by this September to deliver fully on Fair Work in Social Care by 2025.

Launching the campaign, CCPS’s Chief Executive Rachel Cackett said:

“We may not always ‘see’ it, but social care and support is a fundamental; it touches all of us at points through our lives. But it mostly happens behind closed doors and is often obscured behind the big headlines about the crisis in the NHS.

“Social care needs to be championed in public for its crucial role in supporting people to realise their right to independence, their connections with the people and places that matter to them, their wellbeing, and their ability to participate in work, school and community.

“The Scottish Government needs to start talking about why social care matters – not just to keep the NHS on its feet, but to keep people on theirs. And it needs to articulate a plan for how it will invest in, and finally deliver, Fair Work.”

“This campaign is a first step on that journey and we hope everyone who cares about Fair Work will give it their support.”

Through the campaign CCPS’s members and wider civic society will alert the Scottish Government to why delivering on Fair Work is fundamental for the future of Scotland’s social care workforce.

Over the next three months, in the run-up to the Programme for Government and spending review, CCPS will be sharing voices, views and calls to action through the campaign.

Find out more about the campaign and take part.

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24 May 2023

Comment: Why care homes are not alone in a sector facing intense pressure

Our Chief Executive Rachel Cackett responds to news about the status of care home funding

Rachel Cackett

Responding to news about the status of care home funding across Scotland today, Rachel Cackett, CEO of the Coalition of Care and Support Providers, said:

“The situation for care homes is clearly very serious just now – and care homes are not alone in contending with sustainability issues fuelled by insufficient funding increases and too few staff. Not-for-profit social care is facing these issues in all services right now.

Our member organisations report intense pressure across the breadth of their provision, in community- and residential-based services for older people, in services for people with disabilities, and in services supporting children and families.

Why is this happening? In a large part because, despite a commitment to Fair Work in Social Care dating back to 2019, the Scottish Government has chosen to raise the minimum wage in our sector by just 3.8% to £10.90 this year.

That is an uplift only applied to staff providing registered services to adults. There is no commitment to other social care staff, for example those working in children’s services. The result is more and more of the workforce leaving social care for better terms and conditions elsewhere, jeopardising many key services.

We need to see immediate action on a pay uplift to £12 for all social care staff and across all services.

Amidst this crisis, it’s also vital we remember that there are real people at the heart of all these services. People who need support to thrive and take charge of their lives, and to play an active part in their families, communities, school and work.

We need to see a fair social care system in which workers and people who use services are truly valued. That is central to the First Minister’s vison of delivering on equality, opportunity and community in Scotland.

Unless the pay inequality being experienced by social care staff is addressed it will be impossible to fulfil that pledge.”

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18 April 2023

Comment: The days of ‘jam tomorrow’ promises on social care in this country are over. It’s time to act

It should be a national scandal that government after government, whether in Holyrood or Westminster, has kicked decisions on investing in social care and support down the road, over and over again, writes CCPS’s CEO Rachel Cackett.

Rachel Cackett

I’ve been listening to the First Minister’s speech to parliament this afternoon with a growing sense of frustration and anger. It should be a national scandal that government after government, whether in Holyrood or Westminster, has kicked decisions on investing in social care and support down the road, over and over again.

Today was no exception. £12 per hour aspired to, but only for those working with adults. A delivery timetable on pay promised, with no clear dates. No indication of how hoped-for investment in frontline staff will support career progression for good people doing good and essential work to support our neighbours, our families, our friends.

The Scottish Government keeps telling us there is no money to meet their own commitment to Fair Work in Social Care – to close the outrageous 20% pay gap between NHS support workers and third sector social care support workers who are starting out in their career. But I would note that we often hear this in the same breath as money is magically found for other sectors, often in the face of actual or threatened strike action.

So, again, staff in social care fall behind. And providers struggle to recruit. And they struggle to keep staff who need to make ends meet for their own families. And politicians wonder why Scotland faces persistent health inequalities, under-attainment, poverty, unbearable pressure on our NHS….

So, this is our call to this government: Value social care’s contribution to the people and the economy of Scotland. Pay all staff properly and fairly for the work they do. Stop skewing the health and social care labour market by knowingly baking in inequities. And stop expecting charitable providers to shoulder the financial consequences of poorly thought-out and implemented national policy on social care investment.

Our First Minister could start by doing this in three, practical steps:

  1. Implement a Scottish Social Care Living Wage right now by committing to a 2023-24 social care uplift for ALL staff, to an hourly rate of at least £12.
  2. Pay all uplifts on 100% contract value to ensure employers can invest in all their staff fairly.
  3. Publish a three-year timetable by the next Programme for Government to deliver Fair Work in Social Care through parity of pay and key terms & conditions.

CCPS has detailed to the government repeatedly the unintended consequence of its approach on the future of social care in this country. We hear every day from providers about the truly difficult decisions they are having to make. The days of ‘jam tomorrow’ promises are gone. It really is time to act.

 

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24 March 2023

Vison and priorities for social care: Humza Yousaf responds to our questions

One of the three candidates vying to be Scotland’s next First Minister has outlined his commitments.

Humza Yousaf, one of three candidates competing to be Scotland’s next First Minister and leader of the SNP, has responded to a letter sent by our CEO Rachel Cackett and Board chair Andrea Wood.

In the letter, sent on 7 March, the candidates were asked three questions:

  • Will you commit to our 4 Steps to Fair Work?
  • Will you commit to implement social care reform and meet with us, within your first month in post, to discuss constructive ideas for positive and urgent change?
  • How would you articulate your own vision for social care reform in Scotland?

In response Mr Yousaf, who has been Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care since 2021, said:

“Thank you for taking the time to contact me as a candidate in the SNP leadership contest and for your patience in waiting for a response.

Currently as Cabinet Secretary of Health and Social Care, the issues you raise are important to me and would continue to be so if elected as First Minister.

There are two key commitments I want to make in regards to the Health and Social Care sector.

We need to make sure that our staff are properly paid – not only to recruit staff but to retain them.

Secondly, we have some reform to do in our NHS which will see as many people as possible treated as close to home as possible, leaving our hospitals available for emergencies only. This means that investment in our Social Care sector is at the heart of NHS reform and for bettering the conditions of work for social care workers.

If we have social care that has the right workforce, that is working for people, then we can stop them from coming in the front door of hospitals or GP practices, but we can also work on stopping the exit block and see people getting out the doors of hospitals as soon as they are fit to do so and back into their community, keeping as close to home as possible.

Therefore, reforming health care and social care has to be at the heart of my leadership. That is why I am passionate about the idea of a National Care Service – although I recognise that current proposals will need amendments, via dialogue with Local Government, Trade Unions, and membership organisations to make sure it works for everyone.

The principle of the National Care Service, where we have fair pay for our social care workers, where we have national collective sectoral bargaining, and where we have ethical commissioning – these markers will solidify a national social care system that is worthy of the name.”

Our letter also argued that a legislative pause could be an opportunity for the new First Minister to look afresh at social care reform based on our model, and to drive forward Fair Work and sustainable funding.

Ash Regan and Kate Forbes have yet to respond.

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