Brexit (Care Services Staffing)

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 14 November 2019.

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Photo of Sarah Boyack Sarah Boyack Labour

7. To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to mitigate the impact that difficulties in recruiting European Union citizens as a result of Brexit will have on the staffing of care services. (S5O-03759)

Photo of Michael Russell Michael Russell Scottish National Party

EU citizens play a vital role across our public services, including social care. That is why we have launched the stay in Scotland campaign, and why we will continue to argue for free movement of people.

Retaining and attracting the right people into the social services sector and raising the status of social care as a profession are key to delivery of quality sustainable services. We have taken action to protect our social care services, including paying the real living wage to adult care workers.

Under our “National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan: part two”, which has been co-published with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, we are working with partners, including care providers and COSLA, to support recruitment and retention in the social care workforce. That includes work that is in progress to deliver a national recruitment campaign in early 2020, which will promote adult social care as a meaningful, valued and rewarding career choice. The campaign will link to the Scottish Social Services Council’s new careers website, which was launched in September this year, and which contains inspirational case studies and tools to help staff to build careers in the sector.

Photo of Sarah Boyack Sarah Boyack Labour

I thank the minister for sharing my concerns about the impacts on EU citizens who work in the care sector—uncertainty and worries about their loss of rights. He acknowledged that work is being done, but I ask him to redouble those efforts. We need a specific plan to ensure that we retain those staff, given the demographic pressures that the Local Government and Communities Committee highlighted only last month in our budget representations, and the important role that EU citizens play in delivering those services.

Today’s worrying survey results from Unison show that 90 per cent of social workers are considering leaving their jobs. We face a potential crisis across health and social care, which requires that everybody step up to ensure that there is support for those staff, and that we look at issues such as the real living wage and much more beyond.

Photo of Michael Russell Michael Russell Scottish National Party

Sarah Boyack raises important issues. She and I do not entirely agree about independence, I am sure, but even the devolution of migration policy would be a step forward, in the circumstances, because it would allow us to do things that we cannot currently do.

We are very aware that a number of factors are bearing down on the EU workforce in Scotland. The loss of rights is certainly one of them, and the value of the pound is another—sometimes the major—factor. There are also worries about the long-term sustainability of employment and about the welcome that people might receive.

A variety of things can be, and are being, done. I commend my colleague Jeane Freeman for working to offer reassurance to the health and social care workforce, and Ben Macpherson for his work with EU nationals, which takes place across Government.

We will continue to undertake such work to ensure that the workforce from other EU countries is valued. We encourage people to stay and contribute in the care sector, and we will do our very best to ensure that that happens. However, having control over migration would give us an easier and more effective tool, in that respect.