Seòmar agus comataidhean

Over the years, our track record in delivering at least the real living wage to people who are employed in social care has been strong. That has been possible to deliver because we have put in extra money. That policy of investing sufficient funding to ensure that everyone is paid at least the real living wage now costs between £900 million and £1 billion.

The workforce tells us that, if we were to bring in improvements on terms and conditions, its priorities would be maternity and paternity pay, as well as sickness pay. Yes—we would have to invest extra money to ensure that those changes were delivered into the system.

Absolutely. Unions are brilliant at providing professional leadership. We have a professional workforce in social care in Scotland, which is a slightly different approach from that in the rest of the UK. The situation in the rest of the UK has led to some of the narrative over the past few weeks around immigration. Keir Starmer talked about the social care workforce being low skilled, which I absolutely rail against.

Our workforce in Scotland is professional. Staff are regulated by and registered with the Scottish Social Services Council and are either qualified or working towards qualifications. A great deal of support is available to maintain the level of skill and increase pathways to progress in our social care sector. The situation is significantly different in England, which has perhaps led to some of the misunderstanding over the past few weeks.

As I have said clearly in the chamber, the announcement on immigration is potentially catastrophic for particular geographies, including Scotland’s rural areas, such as the ones that you and I represent. It is a result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the different approach to social care in Scotland.

I do not think that we are planning further consultation, but, once the legislation is passed in the UK Parliament, we definitely need to pause and reflect on whether we will pursue the process with statutory underpinning or continue with our voluntary process as envisaged.

The fair work in social care approach was specifically brought in for Scotland, and, when we consulted the fair work group, it clearly liked the work that has been done so far. We will need to pause and reflect. I do not think that we need to consult too much more, and we have the mechanisms in place to ensure that we hear from the sector.

The UK Employment Rights Bill, as it is amended at the moment, includes provisions to establish a social care negotiating body, but we do not have to do that. We can choose not to implement that part of the legislation in Scotland, but we might find that it is more effective.

Yes. As we have illustrated with our answers, things are not quite agreed, although we are very close to agreement. I absolutely understand the frustration of people working in the sector that their terms, conditions and pay are not improving fast enough. That is the concern that was outlined to the committee last week. I agree—I would like to go further and faster. A number of limits are in place. We have just about managed to work out a mechanism that can help us to navigate what is a complex landscape. The other challenge will be finding the money, but we are keen to do that. We are committed and we have a track record.

You are absolutely correct that employment law is reserved. The bill is required to devolve some power to the Scottish ministers to make changes. We saw the bill coming on the horizon and recognised the opportunity to underpin much of the work that we have done on sectoral bargaining by seeking to extend the bill’s scope to Scotland.

When the bill was introduced, it was intended to be for England only. Scotland and Wales in particular were pretty keen for its scope to be extended. That will give us the option to regulate for negotiated fair pay agreements for the sector as an alternative to the voluntary process, which we think will be useful.

On your point about the reserved nature of employment law, the Scottish Government, much of civic Scotland and trade unions are all keen for employment law to be devolved. Under the mechanism that is in the bill, there is an issue that, despite the area being devolved, UK ministers will still have to consent. It is fair to say that we would have preferred not to have that. At the moment, relations are very positive with the UK Government, but there have been times in the recent past when we have had very different views on how we should proceed. Having to ask the UK Government for permission to implement fair work is not my choice.

We have negotiated a change to that. The arrangements were introduced in that way for England, but we and Wales are both keen on including children’s social care staff, and that will be the position in Scotland.

My very first conversation with the unions was on exactly that topic. The language used varies round the table, and one of the first things that needs to be done is define that in your sector.

Do you want to have a go at that, Martin?

I did not know that minutes had not been produced.

To expand on that, the CCPS tends to represent not-for-profit providers and Scottish Care tends to represent private providers of varying sizes. Both organisations represent very large and very small organisations. It is complex to set up a sectoral bargaining organisation, especially as so many different parties are involved, including a large number of employers, COSLA, the Scottish Government and a variety of trade unions. The academic input has been crucial to unlocking the challenges that we face. We feel as though we are motoring and that we are pretty close to reaching an agreement; we just need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on the sectoral bargaining proposal.