Monday, 30 May 2022 – We Don’t Care

On reviewing my advice, today the programme lead sent me an updated strategy which specifically addresses social value requirements that will be added to the contract specification in bids (the ITT) that “attracts a local workforce” and “offers flexible working hours”, “improving skills and training opportunities for the Workforce, increasing their opportunities for career development through offering to support staff through apprenticeships or [ac]credited qualifications such as the Level 2 Diploma in Health and Social Care.”  There is still no reference in the strategy to the council doing anything such as using its Apprenticeship Levy to pay for this training thus saving the Council Tax payers’ money spent on it instead, or the council co-ordinating carers assigned locally, but this is still an improvement on having no strategy at all in the strategy paper and simply leaving what social value contributions to make entirely up to care agencies. 

Interestingly, this section of the strategy now makes reference to “the new Health & Social Care Act 2022 [stating that] there is a requirement for health and care organisations to work together to deliver integrated care which will require sustained investment, excellent leadership and a much stronger focus on the health and care workforce.”  This statutory requirement was not required in the previous draft of the paper but, still the strategy is not for the council, the primary health and care organisation in this case, to work “with excellent leadership” to support and co-ordinate care agencies, but only “for Service Providers to show how they can support the council in meeting this through partnership working and upskilling the workforce.”  The council doesn’t want to make the leap that residents “will be better off for it” should the highly-paid Assistant Director do anything; that’s entirely up to the care agencies, only now they have been given direction on what that anything is.

Even more ground-breakingly, in a newly added list of expected benefits from bidders is “Supporting Homecare Workers through adherence to UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter by ensuring Homecare Workers receive at least the London Living Wage and are paid for their travel time.”  I don’t quite understand what this sentence means.  It seems to say that it is a requirement that care agencies pay the London Living Wage including for travel time.  But, then, if it did mean that, it could just say that, but it doesn’t.