Dimensions response to the Employment Rights Bill

Dimensions welcomes the Employment Rights Bill as a major step forward in recognising the social care workforce which has been overlooked for so long.

We understand why this is important because we have a collective bargaining agreement with Unison that has been in place for more than 18 years.

Rachael Dodgson, Dimensions CEO said:

We are committed to providing the best terms and conditions we can, and paying our workforce as much as we can with 90% of our colleagues paid at Real Living Wage or above.

This new legislation includes a Fair Pay Agreement with legally binding minimum pay, terms and condition and a Fair Work Agency to enforce it. This is an important step for social care. The Skills for Care report shows that measures are needed to address low pay and conditions in social care to ensure workers feel valued and appreciated otherwise the shrinkage of the domestic workforce will continue.

This matters because only 30% of social care requests for working aged disabled people are being met. This has an impact on the quality of people’s lives and those of their family members who are hindered from working.

Any changes to pay will need to be funded by central government otherwise it will fail. Providers are struggling to fund existing increases in pay to the national living wage levels within the confines of the uplifts they receive from cash-strapped local authorities.

We know it will take several years to implement a new system of negotiated pay and conditions and in the meantime, staff recruitment and retention remains challenging. In the upcoming budget or the Financial Statement in the spring, we urge the government to consider immediate measures for short term funding increases to ensure the situation doesn’t worsen while this legislation is established.