So, we're going to move on now to item 4, a statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Services: the real living wage for social care workers. And I call on Julie Morgan. 

Diolch. I'm very pleased to be able to update Members of the Senedd on the tremendous progress we've made towards paying social care workers in Wales the real living wage, one of our key priorities in the programme for government. In June I made a statement on the approach I would take to implementing this commitment and explained I would be asking the social care fair work forum for its advice on how best to take it forward.

The Deputy Minister for Social Partnership and I met with the forum in July to personally ask for its support and discuss the potential challenges. We asked the forum to consider and advise on some complex issues, including: who should be included in the uplift; pay differentials, sleep-ins and travel time; how we might maximise the impact of funding and what implementation challenges we might anticipate to ensure a successful roll-out. The forum worked very quickly to provide its advice by the end of October, and I'm extremely grateful for its work in delivering to such challenging timescales, and its advice has greatly helped inform our decisions.

In December, I announced we would pay the real living wage of £9.90 per hour to registered social care workers in care homes and domiciliary care, in both adults' and children’s services, and to personal assistants funded through direct payments.

Focusing on these workers recognises our broader ambition to improve the quality of services and strive for parity of esteem with other key public health services through professionalisation. The inclusion of personal assistants paid through direct payments reflects that these roles are often very similar to that of a domiciliary care worker, and we want to continue to protect the service user’s voice and control in how the support they need is delivered, a key principle in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. We know there will be calls to go further, but it's essential that we deliver this commitment in a considered way that allows us to ensure it is both sustainable and affordable. Additionally, although our original commitment had been to introduce the real living wage during this Senedd term, our  approach now allows us to introduce it from April, helping the sector face its current recruitment and retention challenges sooner.

We've announced that £43 million will be made available to local authorities and to health boards to deliver the real living wage from April. This also includes a contribution towards the cost of maintaining differentials at the lower end of pay scales. This will help provide some flexibility in the funding. This is important to help avoid destabilisation at those lower pay bands. Officials are working closely with the directors of social services and stakeholders from across the social care sector to develop implementation guidance to support a successful roll-out from April.

We will also commission an independent, dynamic evaluation of the implementation to monitor impact, including ensuring that funding reaches the pockets of the workers it's intended to benefit in a timely way, and that implementation guidance is effective in supporting commissioners and employers. It'll also help us to consider what more we may be able to do in future, and inform funding estimates for future years.

We do understand the challenges employers face as staff look to other sectors with seemingly more attractive terms and conditions. So that is why we will also be making an additional payment of £1,498 to those social care workers to whom we will be paying the real living wage. Senior care staff and managers in care homes and domiciliary care will also receive this payment because it's a further demonstration of our commitment to improving the status, terms and conditions of our professional social care workforce. This payment will mean social care workers on the basic tax rate will receive a single additional payment of £1,000 in their pay packet. The details of this scheme will be published in due course.

We want to see more people join the social care sector and start a long and rewarding career. We expect the additional payment and the real living wage will be processed in people’s pay from April to June, due to the complexity of the care sector and the large number of employers involved. Whilst we do not expect the real living wage uplift, or the additional payment, to resolve all of the sector’s problems in terms of recruitment and retention, we believe they are a valuable and vital first step, particularly in helping to retain workers through these very difficult times.

We will continue to work in social partnership with the social care fair work forum on what steps should be taken to improve social care workers' wider terms and conditions, such as how the definition of 'fair work' should be applied for social care workers in Wales, and setting out what good working practices should look like in social care. We remain committed to creating a stronger, better paid workforce in social care, and to supporting the sector through these challenging times to deliver quality social care services that people can rely on.

I look forward to working with Plaid Cymru’s designated Member on our co-operation agreement commitment about the future of social care. This includes setting up an expert group to support our shared ambition to create a national care service, free at the point of need. We will also continue to better integrate health and care, and work towards parity of recognition and reward for health and care workers. Diolch.

Thank you. I want to now call Gareth Davies to speak.

Thank you very much, Commissioner, and thank you for your statement this afternoon, Deputy Minister. And it's really disappointing that you continue to ignore the advice of everyone concerned with social care. The pitiful wage being offered will not attract people into the care sector, neither will the £1,000 bonus you unveiled, with much fanfare. With household bills the way they are currently, care workers can't afford to live on the minimal salary being offered. You can't take advantage of the compassion and dedication of care workers. These amazing people provide vital care to the most vulnerable in our society, and they should be rewarded for it. As it stands, a career in social care is not an attractive option, and unless you grasp the nettle and accept that £9.90 per hour is insufficient, and unless we pay care workers a decent wage, the crisis in the sector will become a disaster. We will not only have a recruitment problem, but also a retention one.

Social care needs to be a rewarding career, but the rewards cannot just be spiritual, they also have to be material. And one-off payments, as welcome as they are, are not enough. Paying less than the retail sector is not enough. So, why are you continuing with the real living wage policy, when the sector and the unions say it isn't enough? Do you truly believe that paying the real living wage will do anything to address the recruitment and retention problems faced by the sector? Deputy Minister, one of the options you have presented was to align social care with NHS pay scales, costing around £54 million by your own estimates. Why did you not go down this route? Was it simply on the grounds of cost? And will you join me in welcoming the Welsh Conservative-run Monmouthshire County Council announcement that they are to pay their care staff £10.85 per hour? Do you expect other local authorities will follow Monmouthshire's fine example?

And you said in your statement that your measured approach is sustainable. How is it sustainable if it does little to address the current recruitment crisis? Why did you opt for a one-off bonus this year, rather than using the extra £96 million to pay a better wage to all staff? Staff cannot rely on bonuses, nor can they be counted towards such a thing as a mortgage. What assessment has been made of the impact of this policy in helping to retain staff? And finally, Deputy Minister, I welcome your aim of seeing more people join the care sector and start a long and rewarding career, as it deserves to be. In order to make social care a rewarding career, we not only have to ensure a rewarding pay packet, we also have to ensure rewarding terms and conditions. What steps are you taking in that regard, or does the sector have to just wait until you and Plaid Cymru hash out your plans for a national care service? Thank you.

Well, I thank Gareth Davies for those remarks, and I think I'm rather amazed at his attitude towards this announcement. This is certainly a first step towards improving the lot of social care workers, and it has been widely welcomed, as has the £1,000 payment. So, I'm very surprised at his attitude to this statement today. Why have we paid £9.90? This was a commitment in our programme for government; it was also a manifesto commitment. It is the amount that is advised by the Resolution Foundation. It is monitored by the Fair Work Commission, and, every year, they recommend an uplift. And so we are following the rules of that commission. And as I say, this was what we were committed to.

We were very pleased to have the opportunity to, in addition, pay the £1,000, which is linked to the paying of the real living wage, because we are looking for the professionalisation of the sector. We set up the social care fair work forum. They advised us on how we could bring in the real living wage, and they are looking at the terms and conditions that we absolutely agree are so important. And I think I did say in my statement that this by itself will not be enough. This is a first step, and what we plan to do is to work again very closely with the fair work forum, who've been tremendous in providing us with advice, and to look next at the terms and conditions and see how we can bring up the social care workforce so that they are able to be recognised as a profession, and will be able to fulfil their duties knowing that they are being paid, they've got reasonable pay and reasonable terms and conditions. So, I'm very pleased to hear that some local authorities are paying above the real living wage. I hope that many people will pay above it, and it's entirely up to the employers to decide if they want to pay more. But I think we need to acknowledge that this is a step towards promoting the social care sector and that it has been widely welcomed. 

I now call Peredur Owen Griffiths. 

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement. 

I broadly welcome today's statement with the progress towards a real living wage for all social care workers. Plaid Cymru has long called for a substantial pay increase in this sector. Social care jobs can be very rewarding, but they are very demanding and very responsible jobs. These jobs should be rewarded accordingly. Plaid Cymru wants parity of pay and parity of respect between health and social care staff. Delivering this would go some way towards stemming the drain of care workers from the sector. While the announcement last week of a bonus payment of £1,000 for care workers was welcome, I worry this will only paper over the cracks that run deep and have long standing in social care. I fear this will do little to attract anyone into the sector, and I doubt it will persuade anyone considering leaving to stay.

As I said earlier, this statement today is progress towards the delivery of a real living wage. I would be much happier if this announcement was about the delivery of a living wage to all care workers immediately. Today's announcement will be of little comfort to care workers who are yet to be paid the living wage, and may be kept waiting another two years for it, as per the Government's commitment. The cost-of-living crisis is already here, and it's set to get much worse. Care workers are struggling to pay their bills as things stand; they need that pay rise sooner, rather than later. Can the Deputy Minister therefore clarify the pace of the roll-out of the living wage for care workers? When does she expect 50 per cent of care workers to be earning the living wage? Or when does she expect it to be at 75 per cent or 90 per cent of staff? For reasons already mentioned, is there any possibility of bringing forward your commitment so that all care workers receive the minimum wage ahead of your 2024 deadline for delivering on this commitment? 

Even though this statement is about social care workers, I want to mention the key role that unpaid carers play in society. We cannot forget their immense contribution. I echo the calls of the Carers Trust to ensure that unpaid carers are protected from financial hardship by the Welsh Government. You can do this by ramping up the lobbying of the UK Government to reform carer's allowance to raise it to at least the same level as jobseeker's allowance. This is also one of the moments when anyone who values fairness and progressive policies can cast a jealous eye over proceedings in Scotland. There, they have carer's allowance supplement, which is paid twice yearly by Social Security Scotland. This underlines the need for a separate benefits system for Wales so that we can craft a more compassionate benefits system here in Wales similar to the one in Scotland. Deputy Minister, where do you stand on this matter? Will you be lobbying for the powers to be able to do this? Diolch yn fawr.  

Diolch, and thank you very much for those very positive comments and your welcome for this as a step towards the—a step in the right direction, shall we say? I absolutely support the comments that the Member has made. We do want to reach parity of pay and respect. We know what a hugely responsible job care workers are doing, and we do see this, again, as, I say, a first step on that journey.

In terms of the pace of the roll-out, I said in my statement who would be actually receiving it, and that is all care workers who are directly providing care who work in care homes, those who provide care in people's homes, the domiciliary care workforce, and personal assistants who receive direct payments. So, all those groups will start receiving the living wage from April. We see the first year as a transition year, but we intend all those people to receive the money during this next financial year. It may, because of the complexity of the sector, because of the vast number of employers—. Because 80 per cent of this is in the private sector, this will mean that it may take some time to work out, but we hope that they should get it between April and June, and the same is true of the £1,000 payment.

His last point about unpaid carers, I couldn't agree more. I think unpaid carers have borne a huge brunt of the burden during the whole of this pandemic, and absolutely agree that they have suffered financial hardship. We know that, and we have seen, from all the carers surveys that have been done, the stress that they've been under. I regret the fact that we are not in control of carer's allowance here in Wales, and I am very well aware of the demands from the sector that there should be an uplift to the carer's allowance.

Deputy Minister, thank you for your statement this afternoon, and I too recognise some of the concerns raised by my colleague Gareth Davies, but I am encouraged to see that the Welsh Government are coming forward to give our social care workers in Wales the real living wage and recognise the vitally important work that they do caring for the most vulnerable people in our society. Let's hope there is more that we can do going forward to improve the wages for care workers right across the sector. 

Minister, I raised at business statement last week about the situation in Powys where care packages are being handed back to the local authority due to the major shortages in care staff. Minister, I know that the regional partnership board are looking to set up a Powys health and care academy, but, Deputy Minister, what more interventions can the Welsh Government make to ensure that we have enough care staff in this sector going forward, on top of the welcome announcement that you've made today?

Thank you very much, James, for welcoming the announcement and the comments that you've made. I think it's absolutely vital that we do all we can to attract more people into the system. I'm aware that care packages are being given back due to staff shortages. We have been working very hard to try to attract more care workers. We've had a huge advertising campaign, which many people will have seen. Social Care Wales has spent—. We have given Social Care Wales money to advertise the vacancies in this sector and also to promote what a valuable job it is. I think, as we all recognise, you couldn't really do a much more valuable job than be looking after vulnerable people. Also, we've been offering free training to people who want to come into the sector, and I welcome the proposal for the health and care academy. I think the key issue is that we have to get health and social care working much more closely together, and that will solve a lot of these issues. That's why the health Minister and I have been working so closely together and meeting every week with representatives from the health boards and the local authorities in the care action committee. But I think it is that working together that will enable us to move forward.

I very much welcome the statement and the announcement. I start off from the belief that everyone in Wales should be paid at least the real living wage, and I think that's something that we need to be pushing in every possible way we can. The second thing I would like to say is that I welcomed the original commitment to introduce the real living wage in this Senedd term, and I'm pleased it will be introduced from April, helping fund care services facing recruitment and retention problems. But, we need equality of esteem and pay between the health and care sector. How often do we see people working in care going to work in health because they can get paid more doing roughly the same job?

I've got two questions. Is the £43 million, which will be made available to local authorities and health boards to deliver the real living wage from April, sufficient to fund the increase? And, does the £1,498 for social care workers, who will be paid the real living wage, include cooks and other non-direct care providers? Finally, can I just remind Members just how the Scottish National Party in Scotland have driven up poverty?

Thank you, Mike, very much, and thank you for your welcome for these proposals. I absolutely agree that everyone in Wales needs to be paid the real living wage, but what we're tackling here are the people who directly deliver social care. And those who deliver it indirectly, of course I think they should be paid the real living wage as well, but what we're trying to do is boost the profession of social care to move towards parity with what is received in the NHS. 

The £43 million, we believe, yes, it is sufficient. We've come up with that figure working very closely with the ADSS—the Association of Directors of Social Services—and this £43 million does include £6.7 million that will be coming from the health boards, which will come out of the health budget to pay for the care that the health boards commission. So, I am confident that the £43 million will be enough to fund this proposal.

Thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement. I do welcome this as a big step in the right direction. You'll be aware that the Welsh Conservatives made a commitment in our manifesto for the Senedd elections of a pay rate of £10 an hour, which is just 10p more than yours, which I hoped you would have been able to stretch to, but obviously I appreciate that this is something that we're all wanting to work towards in terms of the wider recognition of the social care workforce.

You made reference to the fact that senior care staff and managers in care homes and senior managers in domiciliary care will also be in receipt of the bonus as well, which is being given to the social care workforce this year, but I didn't hear any reference to kitchen staff or cleaners in these care homes, all of whom are working really hard and have done throughout the pandemic, and I feel also need to be recognised in terms of the contribution that they've made. Can you confirm today that you'll look into whether the Welsh Government has the resources in order to recognise those extremely valuable and essential roles that kitchen staff and cleaning staff in care homes have been doing during the pandemic, by giving them the same bonus after tax that these front-line care workers will also be receiving?

Thank you, Darren Millar, for welcoming this payment as a step in the right direction. I welcome his support. Yes, senior care staff and managers will receive the additional payment, and I think that I want to repeat, really, that our purpose is to try to professionalise the workforce—those who are directly giving care, the direct care givers.

We did give two recognition payments during the course of the pandemic: one in 2020 and one in 2021; one of £500 and one of £725. The first one did go to all staff in the social care field. For example, in care homes, all the people working in the care homes had them, and the £725 went to all health and social care staff. So, those were recognition payments, but this is not a recognition payment in that way. The recognition payments were recognising the risks that those staff took and how they were so close to all the perils of the pandemic, really, and what a huge amount they put in. So, those were recognition payments; this isn't a recognition payment.

This is a payment that's going to be implemented along with the real living wage and is trying to move the social care staff who directly deliver this care to a professional body. By itself, it's not enough; I think we've said that already today. There's an awful lot more that's got to be done in terms of terms and conditions and development and opportunities for training—all those things—and those are the things we want to move on to next, but in no way are we not recognising what those other staff have done.FootnoteLink

Information further to Plenary

Thank you, and thank you, Deputy Minister for Social Services. We will now suspend proceedings to allow a changeover in the Siambr. If you are leaving the Siambr, please do so promptly, and the bell will be rung two minutes before proceedings restart. Any Members who are arriving after a changeover should wait until then before entering the Siambr.

Plenary was suspended at 15:55.

The Senedd reconvened at 16:02, with the Llywydd in the Chair.