We have been approached by members who are looking for advice on responding to queries from unions around Statutory Sick Pay. We have developed a standard statement below to help support providers when answering these queries.
Social care sector employers are unable to pay the workforce higher rates of sickness and absence pay as over 75% of care services are commissioned by Local Authorities with public money and care at home employers are restricted from topping up SSP and rates of pay due to the amount they receive for their services. Service rates are set during contract tendering processes, are generally in place for a number of years and do not make allowances for annual uplifts to increase the workforce rate of pay and to capture sick pay requirements.
In addition, for Care Homes there is in place a National Care Home Contract and the cost model that was used to agree funding was set by Scottish Government at the Statutory Sick Pay amount. This has resulted in care homes again not having the additional funding in place to devise their own absence policies with a higher rate of sick pay for staff.
The Fair Work in Scotland’s Social Care Sector 2019 report highlighted the inconsistencies facing the workforce and states that “despite some good practice and efforts by individual employers, the wider funding and commissioning system makes it almost impossible for providers to offer fair work.” The report also states “Commissioning agencies under budget constraints are only willing to pay for the actual amount of time that direct care services are delivered“. This ensures that there is no additional funding in place to pay backfill for staff and therefore the employer can only access the Statutory Sick Pay allowance to cover staff absences.
We are aware that work on Statutory Sick Pay is currently ongoing between the Scottish Government and COSLA. Individuals from UNITE and UNISON are also involved in these discussions. It is our hope that practical arrangements will be established as soon possible and care providers are able to pay their workforce higher rates of sickness pay. This will greatly assist individual workers to make the appropriate decisions re allowing themselves to be tested.
After this current settlement we trust that everyone involved will show an equal endeavour to ensure that we have an adequately resourced commissioning processes so that employers can be contracted at rates which are fair and thus enabling of fair work.
