Adult social care is essential to helping people live independently, safely and with dignity. Yet providers across England continue to face significant recruitment and retention pressures.
The new national Adult Social Care Fair Pay Agreement aims to tackle some of these long-standing challenges, and councils have an important role in helping local providers to successfully introduce the reforms.
Although council-employed care staff will not be covered by the agreement, councils play a pivotal role in local care systems. New pay and employment standards could affect provider capacity, workforce availability and the future shape of local care markets.
Councils therefore have a unique opportunity to act as a vital link between national policy and local delivery, helping ensure providers have access to clear, timely information as the reforms take shape.
Preparing for reform on this scale takes time. The LGA, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, Partners in Care and Health, Skills for Care and the Department of Health and Social Care are working together to launch a communications and engagement programme to help providers navigate the changes.
This work focuses on three key areas: raising awareness and understanding of the fair pay agreement process; engaging providers from across the sector; and supporting employer and trade union representatives to prepare for undertaking negotiations.
We are developing a range of resources, including guidance, FAQs, webinars, and short explainer videos, that will allow providers to explore the implications of the reforms, raise questions and engage with the process.
Although larger organisations are often well connected, smaller providers, charities and individual employers can be harder to engage. Councils, with their strong local relationships, will be key to expanding that reach.
The LGA will shortly be launching a dedicated online hub as a home for our new resources and a single source of information on the fair pay agreement. We need councils to share the hub through provider forums, commissioning networks and local partnerships, to ensure providers have what they need to make the changes work in practice.
This is one of the biggest reforms for the sector in recent years. Like many national policies, success depends on strong local engagement. Councils can make a real difference by supporting providers to be connected, informed and ready for what comes next.
- To find out more, please talk to us at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Liverpool from 11-13 November (Stand D10).