Plans for a ‘fair pay agreement’ in the adult social care sector will help boost the workforce and economy, a committee of influential MPs has been told.
Social care representatives told the Health and Social Care Committee on Wednesday that the government’s plans for a fair pay agreement would be an ‘important moment’ for the sector that would hopefully help improve staff pay and help providers to employ more people.
The comments came during a meeting focused on the committee’s inquiry into the ‘cost of inaction’ on adult social care reform.
The Labour Government has said in recent months that it is committed to delivering its manifesto pledge for a fair pay agreement for those working in adult social care and in September said it would soon be reaching out to unions and staff about the move.
It would come as part of a series of regulation-making powers to be introduced under the Employment Rights Bill which is currently at the report stage of the legislative process.
Appearing before the committee Oonagh Smyth, chief executive officer at Skills for Care, said: ‘If we a pay people more in social care – and obviously we’ve had the commitment around the fair pay agreement – and so, if that’s implemented and funded, then we will expect to see that economic contribution growing. So, paying people more and also employing more people.’
Ms Smyth said the fair pay agreement provided an ‘opportunity for us to have that conversation around pay’.
‘It’s really, really important that we all engage with that,’ she added.
The Employment Rights Bill would allow the government to establish an Adult Social Care Negotiating Body that would focus on the pay and terms and conditions of adult social care workers in England.
The body would include representatives from social care staff and sector employers and would allow the government to ask the negotiating body to reconsider proposed pay agreements.
Anita Charlesworth, senior economic adviser at the Health Foundation, said the introduction of the fair pay agreement would be ‘a really important moment for the sector’, but cautioned that wider reforms will be needed to make sure impact of any legislative changes are felt.
She said improved use of technology in social could help the sector ‘free up’ the social care workforce to be more productive and allow providers to ‘afford that higher pay’.
‘But I think what the economics would suggest, not unique to social care, is when you have these sectors where quality is so bound up with human touch, there is a limit to how far machines can replace humans,’ Ms Charlesworth explained.
‘We need to make sure that we that we’re able to attract and retain people with the right values and the right skills.’
There are currently no sector specific wage agreements in adult social care in England, but the government plans to make fair pay agreements legally binding if the Bill passes.
However, in October the impact assessment of the bill suggested that the agreement could increase costs to councils and to those funding their own care.
The Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) said the charity ‘welcomes the progress’ of the Bill and sees it as a key move towards ‘fairer and more equitable pay’ in the sector.
Steph Lawrence, director of nursing and deputy chief executive officer at the QNI, said: ‘Nurses and their colleagues working in adult social care work in challenging conditions to deliver excellent care, and this is increasingly being appreciated and understood by the public and by policy makers.
A Government spokesperson said: ‘We are introducing the first ever fair pay agreement for the adult social care sector so that care professionals are recognised and rewarded for the important work that they do.
‘To get this right, we will engage with the sector and understand the views of those who draw upon, work in, and provide care and support as well as local authorities and unions ahead of the Employment Rights Bill becoming law.’
Earlier this month, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned that ‘urgent’ investment in community nursing was needed to fix the corridor care crisis.
Last summer Wes Streeting, then shadow health and social care secretary, said social care should be ‘regarded as a profession’ and that those working in the sector must be ‘respected as professionals’.
