National Care Service: fairer Scotland duty assessment

Social Care Workforce

There are over 209,000 workers in the social care sector - 83% are women, 11% are on zero hour contracts. Progressing Fair Work across social care, including increasing pay, would not only help social care staff but will also positively impact on wider Scottish Government priorities on child poverty, Fair Work and post-Covid pandemic recovery.

In their 2019 report on 'Fair Work in Scotland's Social Care Sector', the Fair Work Convention highlighted poor terms and conditions and a lack of security for social care staff, although they acknowledged that progress was being made to address issues of low pay with the implementation of the Living Wage.

The Bill seeks to enable the NCS to support Fair Work in the sector, by including Fair Work within the guiding Principles of the NCS, thus giving Scottish Ministers the ability to ensure that Fair Work is embedded into the NCS as a founding principle, and to make the NCS an exemplar of Fair Work. The ethical commissioning strategies also need to reflect the Principles, and therefore be a key tool for ensuring Fair Work. This will also support Scottish Ministers to improve the way in which Fair Work is identified and considered as part of commissioning and procurement practices.