Meeting of the Parliament 08 February 2023
Hello again. I am pleased to rise once again to speak for the Liberal Democrats in this afternoon’s debate and to move the motion in my name.
Social care staff care for the most vulnerable people in our society; they look after our nearest and dearest, and even us when we are not able to; and they are there when no one else is. However, every day, Scotland’s hard-working social care staff are being let down. More than 200,000 people work in social care in Scotland. They do so under immense strain, and they have been underpaid and undervalued for years.
I might note the cognitive dissonance of ministers, who sought to delete the word “crisis” from our motion on dentistry, now attempting to delete the line in our motion on social care that relates to how our social care staff have been neglected. That is shameful, because they have been neglected. Twenty per cent of them are not on permanent contracts, and many of them are on zero-hours contracts. Poor terms and conditions contribute to rising absence due to sickness and burnout.
Social care staff deserve better pay and working conditions, and they need those now, but instead of being rewarded for the vital work that they do, their efforts are being sacrificed on the altar of a £1 billion ministerial takeover of social care. It is therefore no wonder that there is currently a vacancy rate of 47 per cent across the social care workforce. There are of course many reasons for that, and I will pre-empt the minister by saying that of course the impact of Brexit is one of those reasons, as is the trauma that care staff faced during the pandemic. However, it is clear that the sector needs the Government’s support. Why, then, is the Government content to wait for the introduction of its so-called national care service to improve pay and develop collective bargaining, when those things could happen right now?
The Government often speaks about the financial constraints under which it is forced to work. However, it is utterly baffling and indefensible that it continues to press ahead with its plans for the ministerial takeover of social care, which will create a vast and unnecessary bureaucracy that will rip away control from local authorities and will have a huge and hefty price tag attached. Estimates from the Scottish Parliament information centre are that it could cost as much as £1.3 billion over the next five years.