22 May 2026

‘While the challenges are substantial, solutions do exist’: CCPS response to the new Scottish Government

We have responded to the formation of the new Scottish Government after the First Minister appointed his Cabinet and Junior Ministers this week

The Scottish Parliament debating chamber

CCPS has said it is ready to work alongside the new Scottish Government and parliament to build a sustainable social care sector which allows people and communities to thrive. 

Following a vote on Tuesday in Holyrood, John Swinney was appointed as First Minister and was sworn in at a ceremony on Wednesday. He has since appointed his Cabinet and Junior Ministers, including Angela Constance as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care and Alison Thewliss as Minister for Community Care. 

In response to the announcement of the new government, CCPS CEO Rachel Cackett said: “I congratulate John Swinney on his election as First Minister and all Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers on their new roles.  

“The task ahead of all of us is clearly urgent. Many providers in our membership are facing acute financial and workforce strains, placing their staff and, ultimately, the people they support at risk.  

“While the challenges are substantial, solutions do exist and I believe we already have many of the answers. CCPS, with its members, can help deliver far better outcomes for people – and for this government – if we are alongside as equal partners in much-needed change and public investment can be redirected to fund social care like it matters. 

“In his speech at Holyrood on Wednesday, the First Minister emphasised that he wanted to find common ground and ‘work across party lines’, with a commitment to bring people together ‘to build a country where everyone feels accepted and is able to contribute’.   

“We support this vision absolutely. And for Scottish citizens in need of support to flourish, a vibrant, sustainable and accessible social care and support sector is critical to its delivery. We look forward to working with the government to see meaningful change enacted.” 

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18 March 2026

The Scottish Government’s commitment to significantly improving terms and conditions for support staff welcome – detail now important

CCPS responds to the Scottish Government’s announcement on the creation of a new voluntary social care bargaining forum.

windows of the Scottish Parliament

Responding to today’s announcement by the Scottish Government about the creation of a new voluntary social care bargaining forum to help improve pay and conditions for social care workers, CCPS’s CEO Rachel Cackett said:

“This is an important pre-election public commitment from the Scottish Government to establish a means to bargain for better terms and conditions for care and support staff in commissioned services for adults and children in advance of the 2027-28 Scottish Budget – a commitment we hope will be shared by whoever forms a new government in May.

We welcome the Minister’s clear statement that social care workers ‘provide essential, skilled support to the people we love, often in demanding and emotionally challenging circumstances’, and that they ‘deserve pay and conditions that reflect that’. At CCPS, we couldn’t agree more and we are pleased our members’ concerns about fairness in pay have been heard.

Sectoral bargaining, if done well, has the potential to finally lever the delivery of Fair Work. The urgency of achieving this is clear to anyone who needs, or works in, social care in Scotland. Because of this, we have been involved in negotiating a new approach for some time with government, union colleagues and our partners at Scottish Care. Following today’s announcement, we look forward to finalising a settlement with government that we, like our partners, can take back to our members to consider, and which new ministers can support.

The announcement of additional immediate funds to relieve some of the financial pressures faced by support staff is also positive and we look forward to seeing the detail of the government’s commitments here, including: how much investment is available to meet the commitment in full across all adult and children’s commissioned services and how it will flow through to providers to support their staff at pace.

As always, we are ready to work with current and future ministers, and their officials, to ensure commitments can realise significant benefits and that the many additional pressures facing providers, their staff and supported people can be prioritised so that all can flourish.”

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3 February 2026

A “marginal saving” that will harm the most marginalised

Following the decision in the 2026-27 Budget to alter the way pay for frontline staff in commissioned social care services is funded, we’ve published a briefing explaining the key issues involved and rebutting claims that changing the social care pay calculation is a reasonable choice

CCPS is deeply concerned by the impact of changes that Scottish Ministers have unilaterally made to the funding of pay for frontline staff in commissioned social care services in the 2026-27 Scottish Budget.

The decision to save a marginal sum risks support for the most marginalised people, and those who work with them. Our members are also angered by Scottish Ministers’ absolute lack of transparency in this change.

The briefing, which was shared with MSPs on the Scottish Parliament’s Finance & Public Administration Committee ahead of consideration of their budget report in private session today, explains the key issues involved in the decision and rebuts claims that changing the social care pay calculation is a reasonable choice.

It also summarises our asks of the Scottish Government, which are:

  • Return the ring-fenced funds required to uplift adult and children’s social care pay from the Real Living Wage (RLW) 2025-26 to the RLW 2026-27, without further harm to social care investment which is already too low to meet need.
  • Enter further discussion on how to reverse the decline of our sector through this budget – a move which will be essential to Scottish Government ambitions.
  • Commit to actively rebuilding trust with providers, which has been significantly damaged by how Scottish Ministers have handled this change.

Click here to download the briefing

 

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24 September 2025

“It is only by standing together that we can ensure our sector is heard:” CCPS members gather at 2025 AGM

This week our membership community came together to share their experiences from the past year, discuss priorities, and speak with Scotland’s new Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing

On Monday, CCPS hosted its AGM and members’ meeting in Edinburgh, bringing together representatives from our member organisations to reflect on the previous year and feed into our vision and priorities moving forward. 

As our Board Convenor Andrea Wood noted on the day, CCPS’s role in establishing a collective voice of not-for-profit social care providers in Scotland “has never felt more vital”. At an extremely uncertain and challenging point for members, “it is only by standing together that we can ensure our sector is heard.”  

The AGM and members’ meeting presented an important opportunity for members to come together to share their concerns and learning from the past year, while also giving them a chance to speak directly with the new Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing, Tom Arthur MSP. 

Andrea Wood opened the AGM by celebrating the resilience and strength of CCPS members during a challenging year for the sector, and reflecting on the busy year CCPS has experienced. 

Welcoming two new member organisations who have joined CCPS since our last AGM, she thanked members for their high levels of engagement throughout the year, which has enabled CCPS to speak with credibility and authority in our advocacy work.  

CCPS’s CEO Rachel Cackett echoed these remarks, celebrating the strength of our community, which has supported CCPS to engage in meaningful and impactful advocacy over the past year. 

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, she opened up a discussion on CCPS’s renewed vision and priorities. She emphasised that investment will be foundational to our vision of a thriving social care system in Scotland, as will ensuring CCPS and its members are seen as strategic partners by policymakers.  

Given the importance of this partnership between members and decision-makers, the new Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing, Tom Arthur MSP, was invited to speak with members. 

The Minister emphasised his commitment to working closely with the sector as he embarks on his new role. He recognised that members are pushing both for increased investment in the sector as well as a seat at the table in decision-making, and said that he takes this very seriously. 

Members raised a number of significant points with the minister, including the need for policymakers to have a firm understanding of the benefits of not-for-profit social care, the importance of sector representatives having a seat at the table in decision-making, and providers being seen as key strategic partners by the government.  

The Minister said he recognised the vital work members are doing within a very challenging landscape, and that he is committed to keeping this dialogue open to ensure government and parliamentary priorities address the needs of the sector.  

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24 September 2024

‘Welcome focus on rights and people, but government’s winter plan will meet hard reality’

CCPS’s CEO Rachel Cackett responds to today’s publication of the Scottish Government’s Health and Social Care Winter Preparedness Plan 2024-25

Responding to publication today of the Scottish Government’s Health and Social Care Winter Preparedness Plan 2024-25, CCPS’s CEO Rachel Cackett said:

“We welcome an emphasis on people and rights at the start of the Scottish Government’s Winter Preparedness Plan, published today. We are also encouraged to see that our members – not for profit social care providers working in communities throughout Scotland – are acknowledged as an integral, vital part of the system.

“It’s true that the Scottish government cannot address the crisis in our sector effectively, and ensure people who need support can have their rights upheld, without finding shared solutions in partnership with us.

“However, we are concerned that the plan does not capture the reality of what is taking place on the ground and the experiences reported by our members on a daily basis, particularly around the absence of progress on delivery of Fair Work. We are also concerned that some solutions listed won’t be ready to deliver improvements for people this winter.

“In the depths of last winter, 82% of CCPS members who responded to a survey described service demand as ‘high’ or ‘extremely high’, with referrals well beyond capacity to respond. By the end of last winter, 83% of responding members stated they were providing a public service despite a deficit budget.

“Since then many of our members report an ever greater squeeze on the budgets they are given to provide a public service for the people of Scotland.

“Despite all this, the word ‘investment’ is completely missing from the publication. For providers already struggling with capacity and a lack of funding to meet people’s needs, this is a stark omission – and makes it hard to see how this plan will address the social care crisis for people before winter starts.”

Read the plan here

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21 December 2023

When will we see the government’s values of ‘community, equality and opportunity’ reflected in investment in social care?

Our CEO Rachel Cackett responds to publication of the 2024-25 Budget

Responding to Tuesday’s announcement of the 2024-25 Budget, Rachel Cackett, CEO of CCPS, said:

“It’s very disappointing to see the social care sector overlooked, under-discussed and lacking in committed investment.

The government says public services need reform to be sustainable, particularly the NHS.

Government needs not-for-profit social care providers to deliver more prevention and early intervention for that to happen.

But to do that, providers need to still be here and to be sustainable.

Announcements yesterday reiterated that the base rate of pay would increase to £12 per hour for care and support staff starting in April 2024.

That means pay for our regulated, trained and largely female workforce will continue to remain unacceptably low in the context of rising living costs, a sector recruitment and retention crisis, and ever-growing demand for social care services.

This budget doesn’t address the current crisis in social care and doesn’t invest for the future.

Tougher budgets mean tougher decisions, but choice is what governs decision-making. And choices reflect the true values of the Scottish Government.

If the Scottish Government wants to be true to its words on ‘community, equality and opportunity’, we must see those values reflected in investment in our sector.

But this isn’t over: there is still time invest in the future of Scotland.

We are calling on the Scottish Government to Rethink To £13 per hour, at least, for social care and support staff as a first step in a timetable to equity.”

CCPS is currently analysing the full budget to assess the real terms impact of the announcement on social care spending across government portfolios.

Resources:

Link to our Rethink To 13 campaign

Link to Scottish Budget

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