5 September 2023

4 Steps Comment: Today, the First Minister has the chance to introduce a step change in social care. Will he take it?

The Programme for Government could answer our campaign calls and make a real difference in people’s daily lives, writes Rachel Cackett

It’s been a long year already.

It’s only just turned to autumn, but today is the announcement of the Programme for Government. And for many people in Scotland, the things that really matter in life will turn on announcements made by the First Minister this afternoon – announcements that will show whether the FM’s priorities of “community, equality and opportunity” mean something tangible for the one in 25 people who will access social care this year and all who are employed to provide that support in not-for-profit providers.

For many it’s been a very long year.

If you are someone in need of care and support to stay in your own home or community, to live your life on your own terms, to thrive in your neighbourhood, work or school, you’ve long felt the crisis in social care. You may well have found it difficult to get your needs assessed, or keep the amount of support you need, or to hold on to the valued and trusted relationships as staff are forced to leave our sector.

If you are the loved one of someone who needs care and support, you may well have wondered how on earth you get your mum, dad, child, partner or friend the support they need – and how you get the help to make possible your crucial role as a carer. You’ve watched life become harder for those who need support most. You may be tired, and we know it can begin to feel hopeless.  

If you are a third sector social care and support worker, you’ve seen your real terms income decrease and the gulf between the value given to the work you do and that given to those in the public sector stretched to the limit. Your role in being a part of the very community you serve is lost in the national conversation. In fact, you may have left the social care workforce already, like over 50% of those who moved jobs in our sector at the last count – making the tough choice between a job you love and the need to pay bills for your own family.

If you are a third sector employer, you have probably spent sleepless nights wondering how you are going to keep the show on the road with far less money coming in. You know you need more to keep your staff and pay going, all while trying to meet the increasing needs of your communities through a cost-of-living crisis.

Today, the First Minister could make the beginnings of a step change to all of that.

We know that the historic underinvestment in social care isn’t going to be solved overnight. But it’s 136 days since our new FM promised a starting salary of £12 per hour.  None of those who need a functioning, thriving social care system to live can wait a minute longer for action.

That is why CCPS has been building support for its #4StepsToFairWork campaign over the summer.  We’ve had support from providers, social care staff, carer organisations and, at the end of August, the support of Scotland’s faith leaders. I would like to thank each and every person who has made their voice heard in this.

And let’s be clear. We have heard many imperatives – economic, equality, social justice, human rights, moral imperatives – to delivering Fair Work for those who provide care and support.

Our calls our simple.  And they will be our measure of any announcement today on the move towards parity for those who provide care and support in our sector, and recognition of the importance of upholding the rights of people who need that support.

The calls are:

  • 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.
  • Ensure equal pay for equal work: Apply pay uplifts to staff in all services, not just those in registered adult social care.
  • Value all staff who play their part: Deliver funding packages that value the crucial role of support staff and managers, alongside frontline workers.
  • Give us hope of equality: Publish a timetable by this September to deliver fully on Fair Work in Social Care by 2025.

So as a final message this morning to our First Minister: please don’t tell us there is no money. We know how tight things are. Instead, tell us how you are choosing to allocate a fair proportion of the money you do have to our sector. Show us how you will ensure your priorities mean something real in people’s daily lives. Tell us that you recognise the true value of social care.

Read more about our 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign

Back

25 July 2023

4 Steps Guest Blog: “What is the ethical defence of unequal pay?”

Old concepts of moral principle, politics and logic help explain the absence of fair work in social care, says Ron Culley

Ethos, demos and logos were concepts used by the ancient Greeks to make sense of the world around them: ethos referred to the development of a moral principle or argument, rooted in human values; demos referred to the body politic, to the rules of self-government; and logos referred to reason and rationality, the logical flow of an argument.

Two-and-a-half-thousand years later, and it seems to me these concepts are still useful in making sense of the world around us. The principle of fair work in social care, and the limited political progress that we have made towards it, can be helpfully understood by applying these concepts.

Ethos

The ethical argument for fair work in social care is plainly put. If social care workers across different sectors are delivering similar taxpayer-funded public services, why should the level of pay be different? Given that care workers are providing work of equal value, is the Scottish Government justified in mandating that a Healthcare Assistant in the NHS be paid £14 per hour, a homecare worker in a council £16 per hour, a support worker in a not-for-profit social care provider £10.90 per hour, and a care worker in a private sector care home £10.90 per hour? All of these jobs are comparable in terms of skill and responsibility.

So is it fair that the Scottish Government and Local Authorities have decided in favour of unequal pay? And let’s consider the fact that most people working in the care sector are women and that, on average, women continue to receive lower pay than men. Is it right that the Scottish Government and Local Authorities have not gone further to correct this injustice? Were there to be a reprioritisation of political choices, tens of thousands of women could be taken out of a low wage job. In short, the ethical defence of unequal pay is very difficult to present.

Demos

To explain why this situation nonetheless persists, we need to understand Scottish politics. The reality – however much we might want to pretend otherwise – is that the NHS is politically more important to the Scottish Government than the social care sector. It’s why many arguments about investing more in social care are actually framed around alleviating pressure on the NHS, and not about supporting people to realise their rights as citizens or to give expression to their personal agency. By this argument, social care is only important because to get it wrong damages the NHS, and a struggling NHS is a vote loser.

The other way democratic politics plays into this is in the stewardship of the public finances. There simply isn’t a strong enough tax intake to fund the health and social care system that many people would like, so we have developed a system that supports the cheap outsourcing of public services to the third and independent sector (euphemistically referred to as ‘best value’). That would be fine if it were a level playing field and all providers (including monopolistic providers like NHS Boards and Councils) had to compete for business on the same terms. But that would risk violating one of the golden rules of Scottish politics, that public sector delivery is best (despite evidence that the third sector consistently delivers higher quality care and support).

Logos

The problem with all of this is that it contains flawed logic and makes for poor strategy. What happens if we pay public sector care workers significantly more than third or independent sector workers? The answer is there is a migration of talent and experience from one to the other. As a result, the third and independent sector is weakened, especially given that the labour market has been structurally imbalanced by Brexit and Covid.

How will providers in the third and independent sector respond? I doubt there will be a dramatic implosion – there’s too much market diversity for that to happen. Rather, what we’ll see is a gradual reduction in service delivery across the sector – less care delivered by less people. That in turn will generate more unmet need. And where will those people go? I would imagine social work, GPs and Emergency Departments. Only this time, there’ll be no-one else to turn to.

Ron Culley is CEO of Quarriers, a member of CCPS’s Board and Chair of our Committee on the National Care Service

Find out more about our 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign

Back