In her introduction to the report, CEO Professor Oonagh Smyth writes:
On the face of it, there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful in this report. The adult social care workforce is the biggest it has been since we started counting, vacancy and turnover rates are down – and the gender balance in the workforce is improving.
All of that is definitely good news but, when we look beyond those headlines, a more nuanced – and perhaps more familiar – picture starts to emerge.
Everything is relative, and, despite the welcome growth in the workforce, we still have a lot of vacancies on any given day – and the vacancy rate for adult social care is still almost three times that of the wider economy. Turnover rates are still relatively high and men still only
account for a relatively small proportion of the overall workforce.
The improvements we saw in 2023/24 are also largely driven by international recruitment. International recruits are a welcome and much-needed addition to our workforce, and it is important that we treat them with the respect and gratitude they deserve. But this type of recruitment is vulnerable to recent immigration policy changes, the effects of which it is still too early to understand. And the successes on the international recruitment front are masking ongoing challenges when it comes to domestic recruitment, with tens of thousands of people with a British nationality leaving the sector.
In last year’s report we talked about the adult social care workforce being a ‘leaky bucket’, and this report shows that the bucket clearly still has holes. But there is one unequivocal reason to be cheerful and optimistic that we did not have this time last year.
In July 2024, we reached a real turning point for adult social care as we launched a new Workforce Strategy, which Skills for Care developed in collaboration with the whole sector. The Strategy aims to improve the quality of social care roles, ensuring that the sector can attract and keep enough people with the right skills and values to provide the best possible care and support for the people who draw on it. So, we know what we need to do to tackle the challenges facing the adult social care sector and workforce; now we all just need to work together, with Government, to make it happen.
Not only is social care vital for our society and a fulfilling career for so many people, but it will also be central to the success of the new Government’s missions to build an NHS fit for the future, kick-start the economy and break down barriers to opportunity. Its importance cannot and must not be overlooked.
Response of the National Care Forum to the report
The National Care Forum (NCF) – the leading association representing charities and not-for-profit social care organisations – has responded to the publication of the latest report.
Vic Rayner OBE, CEO of NCF said: “While the data presented in this report shows a welcome stabilisation of some of the key metrics around the care workforce, we must not underestimate the role of international recruitment and the mammoth efforts of providers to improve pay, terms and conditions. It is important to recognise the dedicated international colleagues who have chosen to come to the UK to provide care and support to people who need it when there are so many other countries across the world crying out for care staff. However, when the impact of international recruitment is stripped out, the underlying statistics around pay, turnover and recruitment make clear that we are not in a sustainable situation, and we need a long-term solution to these systemic workforce issues. This is driven home when one considers that there are now 70,000 fewer British workers in direct care roles compared to 2021/22. In the same period there was an increase of 185,000 international recruits”
“The solutions to this domestic workforce crisis are in plain sight as presented in a workforce strategy for adult social care facilitated by Skills for Care and published in July 2024. This strategy was developed in collaboration with a wide range of organisations, including NCF, representatives of our membership and people with a stake in the future of care services. We call on the government to adopt, and fully fund, the strategy with urgency as it presents clear and deliverable methods that would create meaningful and sustainable change. We reiterate our offer to work together with the government as it develops its Fair Pay Agreement for care workers and a National Care Service – central to this will be the implementation of an actionable plan to ensure good quality, sustainable care is there when people need it most.”
*Skills for Care report
Skills for Care is the leading source of workforce intelligence for adult social care in England. Their report provides a comprehensive analysis of the adult social care workforce in England and the characteristics of the 1.59 million people working in it.
Topics covered include: recent trends in workforce supply and demand, employment overview, recruitment and retention, demographics, pay, qualification rates, and future workforce projections.
