Doubts over council’s status as living wage employer as carers ‘can’t afford sick days’

Unions are urging the council to improve pay and conditions for care workers

Bristol City Council could lose its coveted status as a living wage employer after reports that care staff “can’t afford sick days”. Earlier this summer trade unions warned that some carers were making elderly and disabled people ill as they were continuing to go to work when sick.

Unison has now urged the council again to improve standards for carers, many of whom are subcontracted through care companies. Some carers only receive statutory sick pay, which is £116.75 a week — not enough for most people to cover their bills and housing costs.

The council was accredited as a living wage employer in 2018, meaning all of its directly employed staff are paid at least the living wage. But councillors on the human resources committee were told this accreditation was now at risk, on Tuesday, September 17.

Paula Sharley, Unison branch secretary, said: “If we can get service providers to provide better rates of pay, sick pay and travel time, the basics basically, then it would be a much better service that we commission. I appreciate that providers are going to say ‘well we can’t afford to do that’, but it’s what we need.

“People are going out and aren’t being paid to travel between service users. They don’t get paid for that and that’s appalling. They’re not getting paid for sickness, and we all know what happened during Covid. The authority needs to be putting further measures on the contracts.”

In July, a Unison organiser warned councillors that sick pay was becoming an issue due to "cross-contamination". They claimed that some carers continue going into work when sick, affecting service users and their colleagues, as they "cannot survive on statutory sick pay".

Social care services are commissioned by the council, which draws up contracts for companies to provide care for elderly and disabled people. A current tender for contracts doesn’t specify anything above the legal minimum, including on providing better sick pay or wages.

Labour Councillor Kye Dudd, chair of the committee, said: “We’re accredited by the Living Wage Foundation, and that should include contractors. At the moment, that’s not the case. The Living Wage Foundation says that as long as you have got kind of a plan to get there, we can understand that.

“We’ve done it with other contracts, and we need to make sure it happens for social care as well. It’s putting our living wage accreditation at risk. Unless we’ve got a plan to make sure all our contractors are paying at least the living wage, eventually they will knock on our door and say ‘actually, you’re not compliant’. I’m not confident we have got a clear plan to ensure that.”

Most care services in Bristol are now outsourced to private companies, but the council still plays a major role in contracting out these services. Councillors on the adult social care policy committee are responsible for making the decision about improving conditions in the contracts.