The national health and social care lead for Scotland’s local authorities says, if outside organisations were to be offered the same terms and conditions as council employees to deliver social care services, then they’d ‘be as well providing it themselves’.

Councillor Stuart Currie, the health and social care spokesperson for Scotland’s local government organisation, COSLA, says he believes a mixed economy of council, third and independent sector providers is a good thing and it’s important that health and social care partnerships do everything they can to allow everyone to keep operating.

However, in a podcast interview with healthandcare.scot, Councillor Currie says councils have to meet long term commitments to their own staff’s terms and conditions that non-council teams do not.  

The higher rates paid to council teams compared to non-council providers has been raised in evidence to the forthcoming parliamentary inquiry into social care.

Councillor Currie says the issue of how much providers are paid is part of continuing conversations with organisations representing providers:

“The government has invested tens of millions of pounds to ensure that the living wage can be paid to the third and independent sector. There are some issues around that. There are some discussions going on around that. We are having a continual dialogue with Scottish Care and CCPS, a whole range of organisations, to ensure that, where there are issues, we talk about them.

“We don’t want people handing back contracts or saying that they cannot manage a contract, particularly in rural areas, because then what happens: the council has to come along and fulfil that need.”

Asked for the rationale for paying less to third and independent providers than council’s own teams, Councillor Currie says it down to how out-of-house services are commissioned:

“You have to remember that the terms and conditions for staff in councils are built up over decades. It’s not just about pay. It’s about pensions, it’s about job training, it’s about development, it’s about job opportunities, about advancement. These are things that have been built up over decades in local authorities. Obviously, the issue in terms of the third and independent sectors is that the services are commissioned.

“I know there is concern about ‘how can you have a competitive market when you are dealing with care?’ but there’s not that many providers that come forward. There’re not 20 or 30 providers who come forward for every contract. Sometimes it’s a very small number. But the rationale is you have a budget and you commission services. There is ongoing dialogue about, for example, how much an hour should be paid for a part of a contract. That’s not the amount that is paid to the individual who is delivering the service – that is why there has been support from government around the living wage.

“…the local authority is unlikely to pay the exact terms and conditions for their own staff to people they commission services to because, if that was the case, then you would be as well doing it yourself.”

Councillor Currie praises the mixed economy, citing excellent providers in his own council area of East Lothian. He says it works for partnerships to commission social care from both council and third and independent sector providers:

“I think it is quite healthy to have that mixture because we have different ideas and we can learn from each other. Local authorities do not have a monopoly on wisdom. I think it’s important that, where people have good ideas, providers delivering care on the ground, we can learn from that.

“But that is not for every local authority. Some local authorities go heavily in-house and in some local authorities it’s almost entirely outwith the local authority in terms of staffing. That’s a decision for local authorities. In some areas, it depends on wage levels and availability of staff [and] capacity.”