Senior social care staff and nursing assistants but not care workers should be allowed to come to the UK when freedom of movement ends, government advisors have said.

Members of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) have in a report published yesterday said there is a need to make care jobs more attractive to UK workers by increasing salaries rather than relying on migrants.

The Committee is warning of the ‘stark consequences’ of low wages in the social care sector that is largely excluded from the UK’s skilled worker migration route.

The Committee was asked to consider what medium-skill occupations should be included on the shortage list ahead of the introduction of a points-based immigration system on the 1^st January 2021 when the UK leaves the EU.

The shortage occupation list shows which jobs, among those eligible for the skilled worker route, are facing a shortage of workers and where the government thinks it best to fill those shortages with migrant workers.

Earlier this month the head of the Royal College of Nursing Theresa Fyffe and others told the Scottish Affairs Committee in Westminster the social care sector was facing an “acute shortage” of staff made worse by the prospect of social care workers’ continued exclusion from what the UK government is willing to consider ‘skilled work’.

Migration Advisory Committee Chair Professor Brian Bell says the situation facing the sector is of particular concern:

“The number of migrants coming to work in the UK has already decreased and we are likely to see an increase in unemployment over the next year as the economic impact of the pandemic continues, so this has been a very challenging time to look at the shortage occupation lists.

“It has made us more willing to recommend some roles for inclusion simply because it is the sensible thing to do, but we have been clear that migration is not always the solution.

“We remain particularly concerned about the social care sector, which is so central to the frontline response to this health pandemic, as it will struggle to recruit the necessary staff if wages do not increase as a matter of urgency.”

Speaking on the BBC yesterday, he said: “The minimum wage [in social care] is £8.72, Aldi pay £9.40 for people to work on their shopfloor. If I was a newly unemployed person thinking which career to go into, I have to say I know which I would choose ...”

Among the jobs listed in the report that should be added to the UK-wide list are butchers, bricklayers and welders.

Despite the Committee recommending additions to separate lists for all of the UK’s devolved nations to reflect their different needs, social care workers are not mentioned in regards to Scotland, while childminders and nursery nurses are.

Care provider representative body Scottish Care says that although the proposals from the Committee for the first time give a stark warning about the crisis facing social care, they “fail to give us the system which will meets Scotland’s needs”.

“What we need is social care as a whole to be designated within a Shortage Occupation List and the devolution of these decisions to national and regional level,” says Dr Donald Macaskill, CEO of Scottish Care.

“Scotland has an ageing population and a declining workforce. We have long benefited from the rich contribution of women and men who have come to our country to work in social care and have settled here to bring up families and become major assets in our communities.

“They assume that by creating extra benefit for senior carers that the problem is sorted. Had they asked us and others we would have told them that the recruitment crisis is not in this category alone and that most senior carers grow into the role from being a carer.

Dr Macaskill added: “We urgently need change but fear that a government that describes social care as ‘low-skilled’ is not open to hearing about what we need.

“MAC argues we need to pay carers more. Whilst we have been arguing the same for many years the power to enable that to happen belongs to national governments who create contracts that limit that ability and provide inadequate resources.

“But regardless of salary we know that not everyone is suited to the dedicated work of care.

“To cut off our ability to care better by a closed-door immigration policy is to reduce our ability to care as a nation.

“To do so in the midst of a global pandemic is folly beyond imagination and evidences just how out of touch those making such proposals are with the reality of Scotland today.”

 

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