Contribution
My Lords, in the middle of all those amendments is Amendment 185, to Clause 38, which would ensure that training and education for social care workers are clearly within the remit of the social care negotiating bodies the Bill makes provision to establish, and that they are therefore considered as part of the fair pay agreement process in the sector.
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who is in her place, for her support for this amendment, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who, regrettably, is at a funeral today. I also declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Dementia and as an Alzheimer’s Society ambassador. I am very grateful to the Alzheimer’s Society for its input into this amendment.
I do not need to tell this House that the social care workforce remains turbulent, inhibited by high vacancies, high staff turnover and limited career advancement opportunities, all of which significantly impact the quality of care that those drawing on it receive. I understand that the Government’s intention with fair pay agreements is to help address the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, in turn supporting the continued delivery of high-quality care.
This has been reinforced in recent weeks in the Government’s Immigration White Paper, which points to proposed fair pay agreements as a means to improve domestic recruitment in response to ending overseas recruitment of care workers. With Skills for Care figures revealing that there were 131,000 vacant adult social care posts in 2023-24—almost three times the vacancy rate in the wider economy—there is no doubt that this drive to improve recruitment is necessary and that without it, our social care sector is at risk of further volatility.
However, as I highlighted during my speech at Second Reading, despite the clearly beneficial impact of training on recruitment and retention of adult social care workers, education and training are not currently specified as matters for the negotiating bodies to consider as part of the fair pay agreement process. We know from last year’s The state of the adult social care sector workforce report by Skills for Care that access to training was among the top five factors influencing the retention of adult social care staff, and that turnover rates were 7.4% lower among adult social care workers who had received training, compared with those who had not.
Despite the large numbers of those with dementia drawing on adult social care and their unique needs within this setting, there is no legal requirement for staff to undertake training in dementia, as I know from my own personal family experience. The Alzheimer’s Society is therefore calling for dementia training to be made mandatory for all adult social care staff. I support that, and I hope the Government, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, are giving serious consideration to this as part of their plans for future social care reform.
While Amendment 185 would not mandate dementia training, it would ensure that the training needs of the social care workforce are considered as part of the fair pay agreement process, which I hope will lead to improved training opportunities for staff in the sector, including training in dementia, and improved care for those receiving it.
I appreciate the indications that I received from the Minister at Second Reading—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, not the Minister responding to this group of amendments—that the scope of the negotiating bodies could be expanded through secondary legislation. I am very grateful for her letter and for her staff’s time in seriously considering this. When I read in her letter that the intention is to put this into secondary legislation and not into the Bill, I was immediately alert to the fact that I did not see any indication as to whether this would be secondary legislation in the affirmative or the negative. I hope that more information can be given in the response to this debate.
I maintain that improving training and education for social staff is so fundamental to improving quality of care, and to tackling the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, that the Government should look again. What good reason is there not to include this in the Bill? That needs to be clarified.
On that point, training is very often just ditched when times are hard or when budgets are tight. I refer the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Merron—to the Employment Rights Bill: Economic Analysis, published in October 2024, which I am sure is part of her bedtime reading. Under the heading “Unintended Consequences”, it says:
“Where businesses cannot absorb the increase in labour costs, they may look to pass them onto workers by reducing expenditures that benefit workers (e.g. staff training)”.
I repeat to the Minister that I am grateful for the work put in so far, but I believe that it needs to be brought up a level. I hope that she will assure me of that when she replies.