According to an industry body, more than a quarter of the home contracts offered by the English local authorities do not cover the cost of the location of the staff on the minimum wage, according to an industry body which indicated that the practices were equivalent to a “exploitation sponsored by the State”.
The Homecare association, which represents 2,200 providers across the United Kingdom, said that 27% of local authorities paid time rates less than £ 22.71, the minimum minimum, it is necessary to cover legal employment costs such as wages, training and journey time. This left “less than nothing” for other regulated operating costs, he added.
Jane Townson, director general of the association, said that low prices rates “allowed modern slavery” and meant that ministers' plans to introduce an equitable salary agreement in the sector, with an hourly minimum wage from £ 13 to £ 15, were “a fantasy”.
Care providers are angry that they are blamed by ministers for operating practices in the sector which they consider to be the inevitable consequence of underfunding.
Under changes in the immigration rules announced last month, care providers can no longer recruit Foreign workers, following generalized evidence, that the Visa route opened in 2022 was mistreated by employers who could not offer work on the promised terms.
The government wishes to generate wages and standards in the sector by introducing a new sectoral collective negotiation mechanism, supported by workers' rights legislation.
But a Long -term financing examination of the sectorInstalled by train by the Secretary of Health, Wes Street, will not end until 2028. Meanwhile, negotiations for examining the local government financing go through close budgetary constraints.
The HomeCare association has warned that a new pressure in the financing of the Council would lead to more suppliers to abandon the state -funded care market. He wants ministers to be social care budgets, inject additional funding and also revising practices for commissioning local authorities – so that providers serve a group of customers in a small geographic area, reducing staff costs and travel time.
More than half of care providers planned to submit contacts to local authorities or NHS trusts in the coming year due to costs of costs, the association said, and almost three quarters were not willing to accept new care packages funded by the public.
The three quarters of the local authorities had offered elements of succession of costs which were lower than the 6.7% increase in the minimum wage, found that his research revealed, and only two of the 123 local authorities had given higher elevations than the cost increases of 10% with which providers were confronted.
A government spokesman said he was determined to take up the challenges facing social care and had provided a boost of funding up to 3.7 billion pounds Sterling for the social care authorities in 2025/26. He declared that he also introduced an equitable salary agreement “so that care professionals were recognized and rewarded”.
