26th October 2021
Reading today of £162.5 m of new funding to local authorities to help with social care recruitment, I feel a mix of despair at the waste when this money could be so better directed, as well as concern that someday we and our children will have to pay back the billions that are being thrown at every societal problem we have.
10 years ago lack of money was a real issue in social care, when Kent County Council took a massive axe to its social care budget and cut some £70m in 2012. Companies like us over the following five years wrestled with two issues: staff recruitement and retention in the South East meant that we needed to pay way above min wage and retail pay rates. We currently pay some 20% above living wage for our most junior positions. The second issue was that KCC rates were less than the loaded cost of a staff member. So we adapted by handing back social services funded work and focussing on delivering a quality service, delivered by well paid staff to clients that paid for the service themselves. KCC relet their contracts to national service companies who were able to drive their cost base low. The changes we made allowed us to rebuild our local business and offer a great career to local staff that see a sustainable opportunity in a model free from the vagaries of public sector funded work.
In time as others have followed this route the wages and competition for staff in the care sector has risen inexorably. The opening of at least 4 new care homes in this area each with a need of some 50-100 staff each has further tightened the market. Brexit has closed the opportunity to recruit stop gap staffing from agencies in Europe, the normal route for care homes, whilst our UK benefits system leaves many with no incentive to transition into social care work even at high pay rates.
The structural issues above are not new, and have been raised with KCC, CQC, UKHCA and even our MP Greg Clark over the last ten years. Nothing has changed.
The funding of recruitment of staff into Social Care by KCC and nationally was a campaign running pre pandemic, we saw no impact at the sharp end. Further funding for that same route appears to be more good money after bad. The only people who will benefit will be consultant recruiters on contract to KCC, and I suspect the overhead at KCC will take a large slice to balance its own budget.
So what of the reality on the ground ? I suspect that this money will lead to inflationary costs for us as we try to recruit staff. The 6.6% increase in Living wage coming next April will further pile on the pressure. For families paying for care, it must mean upwards price pressure next year. For us as employers in the sector we need to manage our staff resource carefully. Any bright ideas welcome !