Migration Advisory Committee Call for evidence - impact of ending freedom of movement on the adult social care sector: Scottish Government response

Introduction

Our Position

Scotland is a welcoming and inclusive nation. The Scottish Government values everyone, no matter where they were born, who has chosen to make Scotland their home; to live, work, study, raise their families and build their lives here and make a positive contribution. Inward migration enriches our society for the better, and migrants make a net contribution to our economy, our public services and our public finances. Scotland's demography - our ageing population, and depopulation of rural areas - means that inward migration is crucial to Scotland's future prosperity.

Brexit, which the people of Scotland did not vote for, has already had a damaging impact across our society and economy. The loss of freedom of movement will significantly undermine the Scottish social care system over coming years and decades. The new "points based system" presents significant administrative, logistical and financial challenges for individuals and employers. Any mitigating actions put in place by the UK government to off-set the impact of ending free movement have been woefully inadequate.

The UK Government's supposition that people working in the care sector are 'low-skilled' is deeply offensive. The UK immigration system disregards the contribution non-UK citizens make to key sectors and underestimates the potentially devastating impact of the loss of free movement on Scotland's economy and communities. This is already contributing to devastating staff shortages in key sectors.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving social services and the quality of care, and is clear that attracting and retaining the right people, developing them and raising the status of the sector as a valued workforce is key to delivering this. The Scottish Government has already introduced major improvements to professionalise the sector and increase wages. The Scottish Government continues to do everything it can to improve the sector. But these actions must be accompanied by an immigration system that meets Scotland's needs, allows our communities and our economy to flourish, supports the delivery of public services and recognises the Scotland's distinctive demography and the significant differences in the devolved Scottish social care system compared to the rest of the UK.

Our response

The timing of this consultation has been challenging given the strain on the Social Care system dealing with COVID and the recovery. The situation over the last 20 months has been extraordinary, placing Social Care providers and their workers under extreme pressure. Social Care providers and their representative organisations continue to face severe challenges in simply keeping services running and have little capacity to devote to responding to surveys. There are also challenges in finding empirical evidence on the effects of the ending of free movement so close to the ending of the transition period. This has, of course, been aggravated by the extraordinary circumstances of a major pandemic which has altered considerably both the social care sector and the wider jobs market.

Nevertheless, in replying to this consultation, we have drawn upon a wide range of published and unpublished evidence including an analysis of adult social care vacancies advertised on the website myjobscotland^[1] and collected by Coalition of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), as well as reports from key stakeholders including Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), Scottish Care (SC) and the Coalition of Care and Support Providers (CCPS). In addition, Scottish Ministers held a round table with key stakeholders and representative organisations in September 2021 and will draw upon evidence from this round-table in this response.

The Scottish Government is also conducting an updated in-depth study on the impact of the immigration system on the social care workforce. While the results of this study will not be available until after this call for evidence has been completed, we hope to be able to provide some evidence from this study by the end of the year. We will share this information with the Migration Advisory Committee once available.

Our evidence shows that, like many areas of society, Scotland's social care sector has relied heavily on EU citizens in order to provide essential services to vulnerable people. The ending of free movement has led to a significant exodus of EU workers from the sector and has had a devastating impact on the ability of the social care sector to attract people from abroad – presenting insurmountable barriers to recruiting the people providers need. Despite significant efforts by the Scottish Government, local authorities and providers to improve pay, conditions and career progression, the sector has been unable to fill these gaps from the domestic population, leaving some providers in a critical position and services at risk.

We find that there is a significant geographical variation in impact with particular strains being felt in areas which have been particularly reliant on EU citizens. Although some of the most significant impacts are being felt in rural areas, already vulnerable to population change, strain is also being felt in major cities, such as Edinburgh, due to significant changes in population levels. More recently, as the economy has begun to open up as COVID restrictions allow, suppliers have begun to feel significant impacts from competition from areas such as hospitality and retail, intensifying staff shortages and threatening services.

Finally, we find that the current immigration system is cumbersome, costly and unresponsive to shifting market requirements and skills shortages. As a result, it has proven to be completely inadequate in dealing with the impact of Brexit and COVID on the social care sector which requires a ready pool of labour in order to allow it to adapt to demand and continue to provide essential services. Current shortages have proven that this ready pool of labour (previously filled by EU citizens entering Scotland through free movement) does not exist in the domestic population. The shortages currently being experienced lay bare the recklessness of suddenly ending free movement, particularly in the middle of a global pandemic, without an effective, flexible system in its place that will meet the needs of all parts of the UK.

We, therefore, make the following recommendations:

• The UK Government must make emergency changes to the UK immigration system to combat acute post-Brexit skills and labour shortages exacerbated by the pandemic. This should include:
  • Revisiting the previously proposed 12 month temporary worker route that was intended to prevent a post-Brexit 'cliff-edge' for employers who rely on free movement. This visa must be extended to 24 months to afford individuals a fair opportunity to switch onto other visa once they have arrived and obtained employment.
  • A route modelled on the UK Government's previous European Temporary Leave to Remain Scheme should be implemented immediately. This will allow EU citizens to stay and work in the UK for up to three years and encourage further positive contribution to our communities, economy and society.
• The UK Government must immediately scrap the immigration skills and health surcharges and reduce additional fees which are often an insurmountable barrier for both workers and employers.
• Given changes to the UK Immigration system, the role of the Shortage Occupation List (SoL) must be reviewed so that there is clarity as to its purpose and the benefits of including roles on the List. The system of identifying and incentivising recruitment for occupations in shortage should align with the essential labour needs of all four nations, recognising fundamental differences in the way that devolved services are organised, and set up in such a way as to include a wide range of skill levels with a more streamlined and responsive process for adding and removing roles from the list. This should include recognition of the need for social care roles at all levels as essential.
• The UK government must engage in a rational, evidence-based dialogue on immigration needs, recognising that current immigration policy fails to address Scotland's distinct social, demographic and economic needs, with a view to introducing a tailored approach to immigration for Scotland. Further, the immigration system must recognise the regional nature of labour shortages, and be open to imaginative ways of dealing with these including the need for initiatives such as rural migration pilots.