A leading voice from the recent call to increase social care workers’ wages above a £12 minimum says the government devalues the sector every time it fails to invest in care – and is joined by Scotland’s Royal College of Nursing in urging the government to take action now on the fundamental challenges facing social care.

Earlier this week, 110 organisations came together in calls, led by the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS), for a rethink of the social care pay rise above what they say is the ‘bare minimum’.

Social Care Minister Maree Todd responded saying Scotland’s social care funding increased by over £800m this year and the government is working with partners to address the ongoing pressures faced by care workers.

Rachel Cackett Chief Executive Officer of CCPS, told healthandcare.scot:

“The problem right now is that the Scottish government can look for fixes around the edges but the fundamental improvement we need, which more than 100 organisations across sectors in Scotland are jointly calling for, is a decent wage.

“A wage which recognises that staff delivering care and support for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities – people in our own families, our own friends – are worth more than £12 per hour.”

In April, Scotland’s First Minister initially promised a care sector pay rise to £12 and confirmed in the programme for government that this will be delivered from April 2024.

Speaking to healthandcare.scot as she launched a campaign to boost the social care workforce, Ms Todd said that “absolutely we need to increase the pay” for the social care sector.

She added that the government is aiming to continually improve pay and conditions, but that this will take time:

“We weren’t aiming for the bare minimum, we were ahead of trajectory and I think consistently over the last few years we have made substantial increases to wages.

“I can’t go from where we are now to where we want to be – it has to be a stepwise change.”

National Care Service delays

In her response to this week’s letter, Ms Todd also said that the creation of the National Care Service (NCS) will help provide “consistency in further improved pay and conditions”, but the government has begun making improvements now.

Yet, with the scrutiny of the NCS Bill stalled until January, the CCPS told healthandcare.scot that this remains a real concern.

Ms Cackett, Chief Executive Officer of CCPS, said:

“The Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, who are responsible for the NCS Bill’s passage through parliament, wrote to the minister last week advising that they didn’t feel able to carry the draft legislation forward to its next stage until further details had been provided.

“That is a real concern for us and our members. The NCS looks to be some years off, whatever happens.”

Meanwhile the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland has said ““urgent action” is needed to tackle the major challenges facing social care rather than wait for the creation of the NCS.

RCN Scotland Director Colin Poolman said services must be supported to deliver the right staff with the right skills in the right place – with funding needed for Scotland’s care home sector:

“We’re seeing increasing demand for complex clinical care in community health and care home settings.

“The challenges are so acute and the pressure on services so great that we can’t wait around for the Scottish government to get its act together to come up with a coherent Bill for the proposed National Care Service.”

Budget constraints

Humza Yousaf has now also responded to this call, when questioned in parliament yesterday – saying that he is “fully committed” to improving social care pay.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie asked Mr Yousaf what immediate action he will be taking in response to the call for a pay uplift above £12 an hour and he said:

“We are doing all that we can within the devolved responsibilities and budgets to address the cost-of-living pressures. However, as a result of 13 years of Tory austerity, there has never been greater pressure on our public finances.”

He added that to increase pay to £15 an hour would cost an additional £1.2bn and while he respects the social care workforce’s desire for wages to increase faster, the government is constrained by its budget.

This comes weeks after an Audit Scotland report highlighted the need for urgent workforce reform across the public sector to address an expected £1bn budget gap for 2024-25.

Ahead of the Scottish Budget for 2024-25, Ms Todd told healthandcare.scot that she will be “advocating hard” for her portfolio as Social Care Minister adding:

“We have a government who absolutely recognise the value of social care – that’s why we’re making the investments that we have done already. We are putting our money where our mouths are.

“Social care doesn’t just exist to relieve the pressures of the NHS, social care is inherently valuable – we need to invest in social care.”

Chief Executive Officer of CCPS, Rachel Cackett told healthandcare.scot that budget choices must reflect the value the government is looking to place on social care:

“We acknowledge that we are living in a time of constrained budgets. But that means the government must make the best possible informed choices about what it invests in. Our job is to tell them about the impact of those choices.

“The impact of a choice to not put money into our sector is that the people who need care and support lose out, every single day, and our overwhelmingly female social care workforce is further devalued.”

Read more: Doctors ‘deeply concerned' for care homes over winter; Glasgow link workers protected for three more years; Outstanding questions stall NCS scrutiny

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