The way social care is commissioned should be radically overhauled to address insecure employment practices in the sector, an influential advisory commission has said.

In a report criticising ‘chronic undervaluing’ of care workers, the Fair Work Convention also calls on the Scottish Government to set up a new body to represent the views of care workers and agree minimum employment standards.

The social care sector employs more than 200,000 workers split between charity, public and private providers, and contributes over £4bn to the economy annually.

Despite Scottish Government initiatives to promote payment of the real living wage to care workers, the 18-month study concludes the way care is funded and procured makes it ‘almost impossible’ to deliver fair working practices.

Patterns of low-pay and unpredictable hours are described as a ‘symptom’ of a commissioning system that shifts risks, such as changes in demand, ‘almost entirely onto the workforce’.

Under the current approach, local councils purchase care services from private or third sector providers, which compete to provide the most favourable terms.

The care provider is not contracted to provide a set number of hours – rather they agree to provide carers when they are needed.

But the report says this leads providers to employ staff on zero or low hours contracts without a guaranteed minimum number of hours.

As a result, care workers can find their hours reduced at short notice and have little certainty about when they will be working week-to-week.

This disproportionately affects women in a workforce that is more than 80% female.

The authors call for a ‘radical overhaul’ of these purchasing practices so staff receive a ‘fair income level’ and do not face the prospect of having their hours reduced because of changes in demand.

Elsewhere, they detail a perception among workers that social care is viewed as the ‘poor relation’ of the health service, despite the push to integrate health and care services.

They point out highly-skilled care workers are expected to fund required professional qualifications in their own time, in sharp contrast to the personal development opportunities in the NHS.

Unlike the health service, which is well-represented by unions and professional bodies such as the BMA, care workers struggle to make their voices heard in a sector with more than 1,000 different employers.

A new body to represent workers across the sector and set minimum employment standards should be set up by the Scottish Government, the inquiry concludes.

In time, it says this could become a forum for pay bargaining for the whole sector. 

The Scottish Government said it would “consider carefully” the report’s recommendations. A spokesperson said:

“We agree with the Fair Work Convention that enhancing fair work for social care workers is crucial to ensuring a workforce for the future – and to delivering high quality social care services for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

“Our National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan will support workforce planning across health and social care services and to directly address recruitment challenges in our social care workforce – including through promoting the sector as a career destination, enhancing career pathways, and supporting workforce development.

“We will do all we can to ensure that, despite the challenges posed by Brexit, we continue to attract and retain the right people and benefit from the valuable contribution that EU workforce make to the sector.”