20 June 2024

“A collective voice of people and organisations who all share a common vision”

As CCPS marks its 25th anniversary, Andrea Wood, Chief Executive of Key and Convener of our Board, reflects on the organisation’s contribution since 1999

This summer CCPS celebrates its 25th anniversary as a registered charity, and 27 years since it was founded.

To mark the milestone and share CCPS’s new Priorities, the organisation recently held a special event in the Scottish Parliament. Staff and members were joined by MSPs including Clare Haughey, Convener of the parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Neil Gray,  Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and Maree Todd, Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport.

It was a chance to acknowledge three decades of CCPS’ contribution, ranging from its origins as an early, urgent voice for community care providers, with 23 members, to its profile now, representing 89 not-for-profit social care providers across Scotland. A rich diversity of organisations who do vital work, supporting
good lives for Scotland’s people and communities in a way that respects and
values individual choice and control.

Below, members gather at our parliamentary reception at Holyrood on 28 May. Above, CCPS Convener, Chief Executive of Key and blog author Andrea Wood.

 

Guests at the reception reflected on what it means to be part of a collective voice of people and organisations who all share a common vision of a rights and relationship-based approach to social care and support. It’s a vision that, in essence, has not changed over CCPS’s quarter century as a charity, and has at its heart our members’ commitment to ensuring that not-for-profit providers and their staff are recognised and valued as they should be. That’s meant championing the right for people to do a job that they love, but also to be respected, valued and rewarded for the vital work that they do.

Guests filled out cards at the event telling us why they valued social care and support:

After 25 years, CCPS continues to be a respected, influential and authentic organisation, with a reputation based on its values: Creative, Collaborative, Credible, Courageous and Kind. It couldn’t have sustained that reputation without such a talented staff team, now led by Rachel Cackett, and previously by Annie Gunner Logan, who was CEO until 2022.

Through its work CCPS has played a role in the implementation of some of the most ground-breaking developments in social care throughout the years. Changing Lives, Self-Directed Support, the Promise and the Review of Adult Social Care are just a few examples.

All of those achievements have been shaped by the views, experiences and wisdom of CCPS’s members. They wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, and I know that at this important point in its history, its right  that  we celebrate the strength of CCPS’s relationship and dialogue with its membership.

Thinking about the future and how CCPS will play its part, that collective voice of CCPS’s members will continue to be vital in communicating to everyone across Scotland the true value of social care and support.

Members of  the CCPS staff team pictured at the event. From left, Chris Small, Anna Tully, Alison Christie, Rachel Cackett, Nadine Cassidy, Eilidh Shearer, Emma Mathews, Kyle Hylan-Corcoran, Megan Williams and Simon Webster:

Photographs by Andrzej Majdanik. www.haicoo.co.uk LinkedIn: @haicoo_media

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8 February 2024

‘It’s time to Rethink to 13’: MSP briefing published for stage 1 debate on Budget

We’ve produced a briefing for MSPs on Fair Work for Scotland’s social care staff, with an explanation of why the Scottish Government must now reconsider pay for social care staff

We’ve produced a briefing for MSPs on Fair Work for Scotland’s social care staff, with an explanation of why the Scottish Government must now Rethink To 13.

Download and read the briefing

The briefing was sent to a targeted list of MSPs ahead of today’s Stage 1 Debate on the 2024-25 Budget at Holyrood.

It features suggested questions to ask in the chamber on Thursday, key facts and stats on social care pay, and evidence from our current #RethinkTo13 campaign.

The Stage 1 debate on the budget is being held in a period of crisis for the social care sector, with provider organisations increasingly unable to recruit and retain staff due to lack of Fair Work.

As we reported last year, an average of 52% of staff who moved jobs in 2022 left the social care sector altogether (2022 Social Care Benchmarking Report).

Through the Rethink To 13 campaign we’re sharing stories from support workers in the sector about what a pay increase to a minimum of £13 per hour would mean to them and its positive impact on services and people receiving support.

A final debate on the 2024-25 Budget is due to be held at the end of February before it is passed by parliament.

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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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