2 December 2024
It’s time to give the gift of Fair Pay…
As we enter Budget season, we’ve launched a campaign urging Scottish Government to invest in the workforce and cover the costs of the NI rise
Social care staff deliver vital public services in communities across Scotland, and they should be paid more than the minimum it costs to live.
They are working in a context where public sector cuts, lack of Fair Work and impending changes to Employers’ National Insurance are risking the viability of many services.
So we’ve launched a campaign urging the Scottish Government to give them More Than Warm Words this winter.
For the 2025-26 Budget we’re calling on them to:
- Take a genuine first step towards the promise of Fair Work. Invest in our people by committing to the Real Living Wage + 10% in 2025-26, as the minimum for all frontline support staff. Stop the loss of essential workers
- Cover the full costs of ongoing eNICs changes for not-for-profit social care providers, even if Westminster won’t. Otherwise, watch services disappear, unemployment rise, unmet need increase and the NHS crisis worsen.
Across the Scottish Budget period, we’ll be sharing messages and videos from our members in support of the campaign.
We’ve sent our members, and parliamentarians, a mug emblazoned with the campaign message.
And we’ll be calling on MSPs to speak up for the social care workforce and help give them the gift of Fair Pay.
Read the Budget briefing we sent MSPs
Read our press release about the letter we sent the Chancellor on NI
Follow the campaign on our social channels with #MoreThanWarmWords
For more information about the campaign and how to take part, email of Communications & Engagement team: comms@ccpscotland.org
26 July 2024
Staffing crisis deepens as 81% of providers report recruitment needs as higher or same as previous year
Almost two-thirds of not-for-profit social care organisations have increased recruitment spend but vacancy rates remain unsustainably high, according to new research out today
Almost two-thirds of not-for-profit social care organisations have increased recruitment spend but vacancy rates remain unsustainably high, according to new research published today.
Responses captured in the 2023 Social Care Benchmarking Report demonstrate the scale of sector-wide sustainability issues, with serious recruitment, retention and staffing challenges persisting.
The report reveals that, across 2022-23, 95% of organisations found it either ‘very difficult’ or ‘quite difficult’ to recruit frontline staff.
The top three reasons for recruitment difficulties were ‘pay levels’, ‘too few applications’ and ‘local competitors’ such as retail.
The Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) and the HR Not-for-Profit Sector Forum (HRNFPSF) 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 available to download here.
The study also found:
- Just over one-third of respondents (33%) reported an increase in the number of agency workers used in the last 12 months.
- Frontline posts remain the most difficult to fill, with 95% of respondents experiencing difficulties in recruiting operations staff. This was followed by managers (64%) and supervisors and administrative support (27%).
- Two-thirds of respondents had an overspend on recruitment in relation to their predicted recruitment budget. Reasons for this included: subscriptions to recruitment websites and targeted advertising; high turnover meaning more adverts required; costs of PVGs; increased recruitment activity given volume of vacancies and severity of recruitment difficulties; greater need to use more paid recruitment sites, particularly for HR and finance staff; and readvertisement.
Rachel Cackett, Chief Executive of CCPS, said:
“The findings of the survey again demonstrate the immense challenges faced by not-for-profit social care providers in recruiting and retaining the staff needed to ensure consistent, quality support for everyone who needs it. The evidence is part of a bigger picture of a sector under intense pressure.
“Yesterday’s report from Audit Scotland on the finances and performance of Scotland’s Integrated Joint Boards highlighted that providers are doing everything they can, with a driven and committed workforce, but that their hands are tied.
“Faced with competition from other sectors who pay more and a government that sets the base wage, they are unable to increase pay to retain staff and ensure consistency for people who need support.
“If providers are to be part of a system that is resilient to the kind of pressures that will be faced through the coming winter, the Scottish Government must take action on Fair Work and make its choice absolutely clear in September’s Programme for Government.”
“The First Minister has prioritised reducing delayed hospital discharge. But a limited focus on this will do little to address wider dysfunction in our integrated health and social care system that this survey, Audit Scotland’s report, and evidence from our members, confirms.”
Kevin Staunton, Chair of the HR Not-For-Profit Sector Forum, said:
“I would like thank all our members who were able to participate in the survey. Last year I commented that it would be great to see positive progress become a reality after years of warm words about parity of esteem for the sector, the people who employ and the people we support.
“This report shows in stark terms the increasing challenges that organisations face in recruiting new candidates and retaining a good quality workforce in the face of continued threats to the funding of vital services, and in the disparity in pay between the work undertaken by the sector and like for like work / roles being provided by local authority providers and the NHS.
“It highlights key measures to ensure the survival of the not-for-profit sector, meet these aspirations and fulfil the hopes of our dedicated and values-led workforce. Our Forum members invite you to read the report and we extend an open invitation to work with others to make our aims a reality.”
(ends)
Media contacts:
Chris Small: chris.small@ccpscotland.org / Anna Tully: anna.tully@ccpscotland.org
Notes
The headline figure of 81% comprises 43% of respondents reporting their recruitment needs were higher than in the previous year and 38% of respondents stating recruitment needs were the same as last year. This reflects that, for more than one-third of respondents, their recruitment needs stayed consistently high.
The HR Not-for-Profit Sector Forum (HRNFPSF) 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 22 participant organisations. 55% of respondents provided adult social care, 23% identified their function as ‘other’, and 14% were primarily engaged in housing support.
CCPS is the voice of the not-for-profit social care providers in Scotland.
HRNFPSF 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.
20 February 2024
“Some days, it feels like we literally hold people’s lives in our hands”
As part of our Rethink To 13 series, a support practitioner in Sense Scotland’s short breaks service tells us about the impact a pay increase to £13 would have on her, the workforce – and the people they support
“As a support practitioner in a respite unit for young people and adults with complex needs, I wear many hats, and perform so many roles in a day. I am carer, friend, cook, nurse, driver, emotional/physical outlet, entertainer, advocate, teacher, family, to name a few.
Some days, it feels like we literally hold people’s lives in our hands. I am paid the Living Wage for only one of these roles. Raising the wage to at least £13 an hour would not only allow us to feel more appreciated and valued within these roles, it would encourage experienced staff to stay within the care sector.
We do this job to the best of our ability and because we care. But in turn, we also need to feel that we are cared for. My role requires me to be registered with the SSSC, a professional body. However, we still are classed as unskilled workers. The roles we perform are anything but unskilled.
I have stayed with people in their hour of need, providing end of life care, ensuring they are not alone and feel safe and loved. Not because my role required this, but because this is what everyone deserves.
Raising the hourly rate of pay would lead to a happier, less stressed workforce, allowing us to focus on the care that the people receiving support deserve. This would enable them to have more confidence in the people caring for them and offer a happier, more positive experience of care.
It would also encourage others to look into a career in care, offering more diversity, skills and experience, which would enhance the level of service we can provide for the people we support.”
Find out more about Sense Scotland
Read more about our Rethink To 13 campaign
4 December 2023
Comment: “Social care could be the gift that keeps on giving for Scotland. But only if the government rethinks its budget”
Marking the launch of our new Rethink To 13 campaign, Rachel Cackett argues that £12 p/h for staff is too low, is ethically wrong, and flies in the face of what Scotland need to enjoy equality, opportunity and community
On the 19th December, during the last week of 2023 for the Scottish Parliament, the government will publish its draft budget.
In unprecedented times, we are hoping for something a bit different from this budget.
For years now, there have been calls for the Scottish Government to be far more transparent in setting out how its draft budget is intended to match investment to its stated priorities. This is a primary task of government: To ensure that funds raised from the public are invested in the things the democratically elected government has told us are important.
And when things are tight, justifying the allocation of too few resources to those things that a government says matters most is more important than ever.
So, perhaps the government can do something different this year.
The first minister has stated that all funding decisions must deliver against three things:
- Equality, by tackling poverty and protecting people from harm during the cost-of-living crisis
- Opportunity through a fair, green and growing wellbeing economy that can support improved living standards, reduce poverty, and sustain high quality public services, and
- Community by prioritising public services – building sustainability and reducing inequality.
So, perhaps we can expect the budget to be structured to show clearly how decisions to invest – and disinvest – will deliver these.
Perhaps, for example, we will see a commitment to the funding of sustainable social care services that support families facing poverty or destitution in the current financial climate to stay afloat, to keep a home, to feed their families and keep children in school.
Or to services that support disabled people, or people with long term health conditions – who face a myriad of daily inequities – to maintain their right to independent living and stay well in their own homes.
Or to mental health services that help prevent adults and children reaching crisis – and stop yet more people waiting too long for NHS services that just aren’t there – so that they can live connected, engaged lives as participants in work, school, family and community.
Or to the availability of social care and support for everyone who needs it so that unpaid carers can maintain jobs that can keep their families afloat.
Or to those staff in our sector, overwhelmingly women, who provide care and support to some of the most vulnerable members of my family and yours – but are paid far less than those in the public sector to do equivalent jobs simply because the government doesn’t provide enough funds.
Staff who may often work – and spend their wages – in the communities they support. Staff who are often working part time to juggle their unpaid caring responsibilities. Staff who desperately need equality, opportunity and community.
You see, social care and support – ever the Cinderella of public service investment – could be the FM’s answer this Christmas. It could be the gift that keeps on giving; the glue that binds his priorities to effective investment. But it’s only possible with a workforce to deliver it.
And there’s the issue.
Half the people who moved jobs in our sector last year left social care altogether. And the unethical approach to embedding pay inequity into public service delivery means staff continue to leave and social care isn’t always there when you, or I, or our loved ones need it.
The FM has already imposed a £12 p/h pay deal for social care and support staff in our sector next year and, sadly, we expect to see this confirmed in the draft Budget on 19 December. But this won’t help the government meet its own budget priorities; it will undermine them.
So, Scottish Government, rethink your budget.
Investing at the very least £13 p/h in 2024-25 for all social care staff in our sector is the absolute minimum that will cut it – and that only as a first step in a plan to reach parity in pay.
£12 is too low; it’s ethically wrong; and it flies in the face of what you’ve told us it matters to invest in and what many people in Scotland need to enjoy equality, opportunity and community.
Please. Rethink your budget.
#RethinkTo13
24 October 2023
Statement: “With promised £12 per hour base pay no more than the Real Living Wage, social care staff need action now to show they are valued”
Our CEO Rachel Cackett responds to today’s announcement that the Real Living Wage will rise to £12 per hour
Responding to today’s announcement that the Real Living Wage will rise to £12 per hour, CCPS’s Chief Executive Rachel Cackett said:
“Back in September, the Scottish Government announced a £12 per hour base rate of pay for social care staff, starting in April 2024. Today, we know that this offer is no more than the new Real Living Wage amount, which will be introduced at the same time.
This means that many not-for-profit social care staff – who work with disabled people, older people, children, families and many others who need support in communities across Scotland – will now receive just the minimum the Living Wage Foundation calculates is needed to meet every day needs.
This is nothing like enough.
Before the new base rate and RLW kick in next spring, social care staff will have to navigate the winter months as an acute cost of living crisis continues, whilst many earn just the £10.90 per hour currently set by the Scottish Government.
The First Minister’s states his priorities are “Equality, Opportunity and Community”. These priorities are at the heart of social care. Yet a workforce that makes such a vital contribution to society, to supporting people to thrive and live independent lives, continues to face inequality and limited opportunities through poor government pay awards. The knock-on is a lack of available support for the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Investing in the value of social care is a political choice, and there is still time to make the right choice in the 2024-25 Budget. We know public finances are tight. We know we won’t get to parity of pay, terms and conditions for equal work with public sector colleagues overnight. We are very far from that now.
But we need to see a clear step to closing the pay gap in April next year and a plan to get to equality; a move towards showing staff that they are truly valued.
So, we are calling on the First Minister to up his offer to at least £13 per hour for all social care staff from April 2024 as part of a published timetable to achieve Fair Work.
Not as an end point, but to indicate in tough times that our government sees the value of our sector and is committed to ending deep inequities for social care staff in Scotland.”
12 October 2023
4 Steps Comment: “The door is open. Now we need to push it a bit further”
Our CEO Rachel Cackett reflects on the disappointments and successes of our 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign – and what our emerging movement can do next in its fight for social justice
“You can survive, but you can’t really live.”
Those words from Derek, a frontline social care worker, have echoed around my head during our #4StepsToFairWork campaign. They describe what it feels like to live on the amount the Scottish Government makes available to our members to pay staff who provide support to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. People we all clapped through COVID. The people who might work to support my family or yours.
It’s the quietest national scandal that, behind doors in streets and villages across Scotland, are people who need support to live, to thrive, to be well, to stay independent, who can’t get it because there simply aren’t the staff.
It’s the quietest national scandal that social care and support staff working in our sector – the vast majority of them women – are paid 20% less to deliver public services, from our taxes, than people doing equivalent work in the NHS.
So, at the start of 2023 we decided it was time to stop being quiet and call for better, loudly.
Our demands weren’t huge. Simply, we wanted all staff to get at least £12 per hour from April 2023 as the first step of a public plan to pay people fairly. A plan to give staff, and the people they support, hope.
And our #4StepsToFairWork campaign began to snowball.
Frontline staff and CEOs from our member organisations stood up and spoke up. And then others joined. Carer Organisations, Scotland’s Faith Leaders, partner organisations, people with experience of care and support all spoke up through blogs, emails to MSPs, social media posts. I would like to personally thank every one of you who did so. In a sector, based on the rights of people to exercise choice and control about their own care and support, our diversity and our voice are our strengths.
Then, early in our campaign, our new First Minister stood up to give his first speech to the Scottish Parliament.
We waited.
“Equality, Opportunity, Community” he said. Those are the government’s new priorities. “That’s social care!”, we thought.
We waited…
A commitment to £12 an hour, he said. “At last!”, we thought. The voices had been loud enough for him to hear.
But then he gave no date.
A crisis heard, but half a promise made. And a crashing disappointment for the thousands of committed staff in our sector, and to the leaders trying to keep their organisations open.
140 days later the date came in the Programme for Government – £12ph from April 2024. We hoped for a mistake in the speech, but no. A year late and by then, again too little.
And no plan.
Of course I am disappointed that the voices of so many have not resulted in our asks being met in full. That the national scandal of the Scottish Government baking in inequity to social care, and leaving people without the support they need, remains. But is it over? Absolutely not.
The door is open. We just need to push it a bit further.
Your voices were so loud, your arguments so clear, that our new FM knew he had to make a commitment to our sector in his first speech. We shouldn’t ignore this; we should build on it.
For the first time, the pay award has been extended to those working in children’s services: A first inequity addressed through our campaign.
The collective, public, voice of our sector and our allies is building to bring social justice to social care and support. Nurturing that emerging movement in the run-up to elections, as parties set their new priorities, is crucial.
And finally – and importantly – let’s remember that the £12 announcement might be made, but the Scottish Budget is not yet passed. Every MSP has an opportunity to speak up to call for more, for better. All of us can still call on politicians, whose core job is to allocate tax payers’ money to fund priorities for our nation, to make a better decision.
So, our #4StepsToFairWork campaign concludes today; but our campaign for better for our sector does not.
Watch this space….
11 October 2023
4 Steps Guest Blog: “Ending the difference in funding levels between services would be a step towards the fairness we need”
A hierarchy in adults and children’s services or between regulated v unregulated services simply means more inequalities, says Fiona Steel, Action for Children’s Acting National Director for Scotland
In the recent Programme for Government the First Minister announced a commitment to ‘provide the necessary funding in the next Budget to increase the pay of social care workers in a direct care role, to deliver funded early learning and childcare, to at least £12 per hour’. As ever, we await the fine print on how this commitment will operate in practice.
While this is a move in the right direction and may go some way to ‘dealing with pay inequality’ – the first step of the 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign – there is still unfortunately a long journey to go before social care and support workers are properly rewarded and recognised. We can’t forget that The Promise stated, ‘the purpose of the workforce must be to be caring above anything else. That starts with recruiting people with the right ethos and qualities rather than qualifications’.
But how do we get these people into social care?
Action for Children knows that there is a current struggle to attract and retain people into the social care workforce. We also know that social care staff are experts in the people they care for. To provide that vital care requires staff to use multiple skills ranging across the clinical, emotional and academic, while also collaborating closely with a myriad of other professionals.
People who choose to work in the care sector display astonishing levels of compassion, empathy, commitment, and kindness to ensure people they care for are made to feel they belong, are safe, loved and valued.
For too often the perception of social care work as being low skill prevailed. This needs to be challenged and changed.
During Covid we did see the beginning of a shift in people’s attitudes towards the sector: our frontline workers were seen as key workers who added social value. Our staff were the people who society relied on in times of crisis but also in times of normality. It’s disappointing that this view change hasn’t been built upon.
We need renewed government support and help to attract and retain staff in the sector.
As an organisation we are focused on investing in our staff. We are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. We pay the real living wage; we embrace the Government’s Fair Work agenda. We offer excellent training and developments opportunities; we help staff gain professional qualifications and offer flexible working hours. We encourage young people into our workforce, highlighted by the fact we recently gained a Platinum Award from Investors in Young People (IIYP).
However we are still facing recruitment challenges, especially when it comes to the complexity of commissioning of services.
We as a sector need parity. We shouldn’t have a hierarchy between adult and children services or between regulated vs unregulated services. The difference in the levels of funding between each of these areas can create inequalities.
That’s why Action for Children fully supports CCPS’s campaign calls to ensure equal pay for equal work and value all staff who play their part by delivering funding packages that value the crucial role of the different staff who make up the social care workforce.
The third sector delivers many local authority services, but councils are competing with these providers for staff. They are offering more in wages to attract staff than they give in rates in the contracts for providers, ironically making it harder to staff these local services.
Something fundamental needs to change to make sure Scotland has a talent pool for social care that is deeper not shallower. Action for Children believes the 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign can be the catalyst for change needed. That is why we offer it our full support.
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.
Find out more about Cosgrove Care
Find out more about our 4 Steps to Fair Work campaign and take part
26 September 2023
4 Steps Guest Blog: “Funding packages that value all staff will play a crucial part in developing a motivated workforce”
Alex Cumming, SAMH’s Executive Director of Operations, on why social care and support managers need our backing to ensure not just that they don’t leave the sector, but that they can thrive in it
At SAMH (the Scottish Association for Mental Health) we believe everyone is entitled to hope and choice, and to achieve personal fulfilment. We know from 100 years of working in mental health that the key to delivering on these values – and the success of services – is a sustainable, happy and valued workforce.
Critical to our frontline workforce is the support given by managers across the country. Within moments they move from crisis management, to hands-on delivery, meeting ever-more demanding compliance requirements and regulations. They do all this while embedding organisational changes, leading service improvements and delivering contractual obligations. Our ask of them is vast.
The role they play in creating and embedding a culture of compassion and providing the environment for staff to develop cannot be exaggerated. They provide support for improving practice and negotiate delicate performance conversations. They do all this at the same time as bringing the team together to work on the collective goal of improving outcomes for people we work with.
This means that the ability to sustain and develop management and leadership pathways is essential, and just as urgent as the frontline challenge all providers are facing. One way to address both these issues is delivering funding packages that value all staff, which will play a crucial part in developing a motivated health and social care workforce that functions effectively, safety and consistently.
All of us are planning for the future, and considering what’s needed for management and leadership roles is key to that. However, we need a longer term view as well as support from government that delivers greater parity, enables us to harness the passion and skills to develop our managers, and reduces the fatigue our staff are feeling.
So where are the positives? Having spent time with more than 50 of our managers in the last week, I’m reminded of the drive and determination of our workforce and their unyielding commitment to those we support. Their resilience motivates others, but they need our backing and support to make sure not just that they don’t leave the sector, but that they can thrive in it.
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