Moves to pay all social care staff the real living wage have uncovered serious cracks in the system, says one charity that can't pay £8.25 for sleepovers
One of Scotland’s biggest social care charities has said it cannot afford to pay its staff the real living wage for every hour they work because councils aren’t prepared to pay more for the public services it provides.
Enable Scotland began paying at least the real, but supposedly voluntary, living wage of £8.25 to all its 1,300 staff for work they do during the day on 1 October following a Scottish Government decree that all social care staff should be paid the rate from that day.
However, its chief executive Theresa Shearer said it would cost the charity £800,000 more this year to pay staff the living wage for sleepovers – when they stay at a client’s place of residence overnight.
It’s not a popular message but if the last month shows anything it’s that the foundations on which the social care sector in Scotland are built are cracking
Theresa Shearer
Writing in TFN about the challenges her organisation and other third sector bodies have in paying the living wage, Shearer said Enable Scotland wants to pay the living wage to staff for every hour they work.
“We want to pay more for sleepovers. Enable Scotland believes that all staff should be paid a fair wage for every hour they work,” wrote Shearer.
“But until we are further down the road with our negotiations with local authorities – which remains one of our key immediate priorities – there will be no change to current arrangements for Enable Scotland employees.”
In the second of two recent articles for TFNon the pressure of paying the living wage, Shearer said what should have been a positive move for the social care sector has revealed cracks in the foundations of the sector.
“There’s less money and more demand for our services and that just isn’t going to change,” she wrote. “Yet there remains 1,000 providers of adult social care services across the private and voluntary sectors in Scotland. For a country of 5.3 million people – that’s a lot.
“It’s not a popular message but if the last month shows anything it’s that the foundations on which the social care sector in Scotland are built are cracking. And if we don’t do something about it now, it’ll be the people we support who suffer.”
The Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) said Enable was not the only social care charity to struggle to complete negotiations with local authorities on the living wage. Its deputy director Dee Fraser said a minority of its members are still working with councils to agree new contract terms, meaning staff will have to wait for back-dated wage rises.
“Enable’s experience of dealing with significant variation in approach by local authorities to implementing the living wage is typical of the experience of multi-area third sector providers," said Fraser. "Organisations want to pay the living wage across the whole of their social care workforce and need timely, confirmed agreements with local authorities to do this.“
Fraser, however, welcomed the Scottish Government decision to give the sector a year to consider how best to tackle the issue of sleepovers. Until a recent European ruling, staff didn't even get the national minumum wage for sleepovers, and the increase in the cost for this service means social care bodies and councils may now have to conside other ways to meet client's overnight care needs.
“We have a shared ambition for all hours of support to be paid at the living wage, including sleepovers," said Fraser. "However rushed implementation would have led to significant disruption to people’s sleepover support. We are grateful that the Scottish Government listened to the genuine concerns of providers and have given the sector some lead time to develop alternative approaches.“
In relation to the number of care bodies in Scotland, Fraser added: “The range, diversity and number of providers working in Scotland should not be determined by our own views on the preferred structure for the sector. Rather this should be determined by the supported person’s choice of provider under self-directed support. Effective implementation of self-directed support leads to a provider market directed and shaped by the individual. ”
Shearer is calling on the Scottish Government, local authorities and both private and third sector social care bodies to come together to discuss how the sector can change to better serve the needs of care users.
