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

Section 1: EU citizens in Scotland's social care system before Brexit.

Scotland's social care services have traditionally benefited greatly from the staff in the workforce who have come from across the EU. The skills and dedication of EU workers have always been highly valued by employers and those benefiting from their care. We outline key data on the contribution of EU workers and workforce challenges from 2018 and 2019 below.

Scottish Government EU workers in Scotland's social care workforce: contribution assessment

In July 2018, the Scottish Government commissioned an Ipsos MORI report seeking to measure the contribution of EU workers in Scotland's social care workforce^[2]. This report showed that 5.6% of people employed within adult social care and childcare were non-UK EU nationals, equivalent to 9,830 workers.

Estimates on the numbers of EU workers varied by sub-sector, ranging from 0.3% for childminding services to 16.5% (+/- 11.3%) for nurse agencies, with the remaining sub-sectors between 3.8% and 6.8%. In terms of absolute numbers of staff, the sectors with the most non-UK EU staff were Care Home for Adults (3,150), Housing support/Care at Home (2,850), and Day Care of Children (2,290).

Non-UK EU workers were more prevalent in private sector services (6.4% +/- 1.6%; 5,410 staff), than in voluntary sector services (5.4% +/- 1.8%; 2,730) and public sector services (3.7% +/- 2.1%; 1,510). Non-UK EU staff were more prevalent among NMC-registered nurses, auxiliary staff and care staff than managers and other staff. Around 7.3% of NMC registered nurses (+/- 1.2%), 5.9% of care staff (+/- 1.1%) and 5.7% of auxiliary staff (+/- 1.1%) were from non-UK EU countries. These distinctions are important when considering which sectors and roles are likely to experience impacts as a result of free movement ending.

In terms of geographical distribution across Scotland, non-UK EU staff accounted for the highest proportion of care staff in the North East (9.1% +/-4.3%) and the East (7.8% +/- 2%), compared to in the Highlands and Islands (3.8% +/-2.7%) and the South West (3.5% +/-1.3%) while the proportion of non-UK EU staff was 4.9% (+/- 4.9%) in remote rural Scotland, 5.6% (+/- 3.5%) in accessible rural areas of Scotland, and 5.7% (+/- 1.4%) in the rest of Scotland.

The report demonstrated that there was little change in applications for social care jobs from EU nationals in the year to report publication compared to the year 2018/19. At that time, the majority of managers (63% for care staff, 85% for managerial posts) reported no change over the last 12 months in the number of applications they received from non-UK EU27 nationals while 15% of managers reported having received more applications from EU nationals for care staff/practitioners with 13% reporting a fall. However, the evidence suggested that, even in 2018, recruitment for some roles was perceived to be becoming more difficult for some roles – particularly NMC registered nurses and care staff and practitioners.

Scottish Care Home Workforce Data report

A 2018 Care Home Workforce Data report from Scottish Care indicated that 8.1% of their care home staff were from outwith the UK including 5% from the EU^[3]. Compared to the previous year, 41% found recruiting more difficult that year with one fifth experiencing increased difficulty recruiting managers and a third finding recruiting domestic & ancillary staff more challenging than the previous year.

Scottish Care Nursing Survey

In October 2018, Scottish Care also carried out a members' survey focusing on nursing which showed that 54% of their member providers recruited from within the European Economic Area and 35% recruited from countries outside of the EEA^[4]. Approximately 12% of the nurses in the survey were from the EEA area. There were staff vacancies of around 20% in nursing posts in care homes and 77% of care homes were having recruitment difficulties. 60% of providers respondents reported that were finding it much more difficult to recruit from Europe than in the previous year.

The same survey showed that there were some parts of the country where the recruitment of nurses was considered to be particularly challenging, including Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, the Borders and Aberdeenshire. There was a further group which also evidenced difficulties, namely Glasgow, Fife, South and North Ayrshire and Argyll & Bute. However over a half of respondents indicated that they had difficulties in recruiting in all the areas they operated.

SSSC Staff Vacancies Report

The Staff Vacancies in Care 2019 Report is jointly published by the Care Inspectorate and the SSSC. The report provides data on vacancies reported by care services as at 31 December 2019. It shows the number of registered care services with a vacancy and the number of actual vacancies that services say they had using whole time equivalent (WTE) data.

It is important to note the most recent available data (December 2020 Report) reflects the situation in care services before the COVID-19 pandemic, and before the first case had been identified in the UK. The next report, which will be published later in 2021, will be based on data between 01 January 2020 and 31 December 2020, so it will provide data from during the pandemic.We recommend the MAC ensure that this latest data is taken into account in their final report when it becomes available.

This report shows that vacancies in the social services sector are significant and have been rising, revealing that 39% of services had vacancies^[5]. This was an increase of 1% from the number of services with vacancies at the end of December 2018 and 2017 (both 38%). The current figure is significantly higher than the 20% of all establishments, across all sectors in Scotland that report having a vacancy.

At 31 December 2019, the rate of WTE vacancies for all social services in Scotland was 6.2%, up from 5.5% in 2018. This was also significantly higher than the overall vacancy rate across all establishments in Scotland of 3.1% in 2017 which is the most recent data available for the whole Scottish economy. This may have recently increased with the 2021 impact of workforce shortages across retail and hospitality sectors.

49% of services had difficulties filling vacancies (up 2% from the previous year). The service types with the largest proportion of vacancies (for types with more than 100 services) were: care homes for older people (63% of services), housing support/care at home (62% of services), and care homes for adults (54% of services). These types of services have levels of vacancies all significantly above the national average for all care services.

The most common reasons given by most service types that reported problems filling vacancies were: too few applicants with experience (59%), too few applicants in general (58%) and too few qualified applicants (52%).