National Care Service (Scotland) Bill (Detailed)

Unite did call for the introduction of a National Care Service. However the Bill as set out does not reflect the vision we have for delivering improvements of quality or consistency or indeed for workers or service users in the social care sector.
At its most basic, social care is a fundamental human right to a decent and dignified life including decent treatment. All public bodies have a duty to protect these human rights. Human rights should therefore lie at the heart of a public care system that delivers dignified and accountable care to the people who use it. Too many people have been failed by the system as it is presently set up.
In order for a National Care Service (NCS) to implement good principles, there is a basic need for appropriate resources to fund services. The money to ‘fix’ the decades-old problem of social care requires a wider tax base to finance it rather than concentrating on National Insurance as has been introduced by the UK Government, which will impact the incomes of working people and will fall heaviest on the lowest paid.
Unite does not believe that the Bill as introduced, will achieve the ultimate purpose of improving the quality and consistency of social work and social care services in Scotland as the Bill itself fails to provide an a clear vision of how a NCS will work in practice. The devil as they say is in the detail.
From what we can assume from the Bill, the framework will seek to maintain a mixed provision for delivering social care services, including the retention of profit making organisations and the free market. This, Unite would argue, ensures that the Bill will fail to deliver any improvements on quality, as the drive for profits will always take precedence for shareholders over other the interests of other stakeholders, such as improving quality of service or providing fair remuneration to the workforce.
The STUC’s recent Profiting from Care Report amply demonstrates these points:
• Nearly 25% of care homes run by big private providers had at least one complaint upheld against them in 2019/20, compared to 6% of homes not run for profit.
• In older people’s care homes, staffing resources are 20% worse in the private sector compared to the not-for-profit sector.
• Privately owned care homes only spend 58% of their revenue on staffing, compared to 75% in not-for-profit care homes.
• Over the last six years, the public sector has paid on average £1.60 more per hour to care workers.
• The most profitable privately owned care homes take out £13,600 per bed (or £28 of every £100 received in fees) in profits, rent, payments to the directors, and interest payments on loans. This compares to £3.43 in every £100 in fees for the largest not-for-profit care home operators.
Unite would also argue that unless there are clear objectives then ambiguity or undefined parameters allow for various interpretations of how the service should operate and in who’s interests. This creates an environment where materially differing opinions on what is, and is not, suitable between groups can lead to frustrations and disillusionment developing.
Unite believes that leaving the potential for a profit element within the Bill is the wrong thing to do. Unite previously submitted a response to the Scottish Government on what should be contained within the Bill. One of the key elements in our response was that local government should retain overall control of social care services and that there should be no place for private provision in care. These fundamental elements have been side-lined.

Unite is presently undertaking an ongoing survey of social care members within the third, voluntary and private sectors. Early indications are that quality and consistency within these sectors fall far below that evident within public provision. Indications are that NCS as proposed intends to retain both private provision, via procured services, as well as Third Sector provision.
The Unite survey of care workers within third, voluntary and private sectors has so far found:
• That care & Support workers in these sectors feel they are systematically and structurally undervalued.
• That in many, many cases basic employment rights, like the right under UK law to an uninterrupted break, are simply not being upheld.
• That many Care & Support workers are out of pocket financially as a result of carrying out their duties, either because of outdated expenses policies and reimbursement procedures that have fallen far behind the cost of goods and services or because their employer simply does not reimburse staff for expenses incurred.
• That care & support workers continue to pay to register with the SSSC just to gain or retain their employment.
• That there is considerable variation in pay, terms and conditions across the voluntary/not-for-profit and private sectors, with a strong tendency for employers to lean toward statutory minimums or Scottish Government mandated minimum pay rates.
• That workers continually do their very best for those they provide care and support to, including taking on, sometimes quite complex, additional responsibilities and working extra or long hours for no additional or enhanced pay.
• That the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector is leading to professional support systems being stripped back, often leaving staff feeling under supported.
• That the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector is undermining regular training and retraining options in practice.
• That the cost of living crisis is biting hard in the Scottish Health & Social Care sector. Details of how workers are being impacted will be released shortly.
Some of the individual comments received in the interim results show the desperate situation many workers find themselves in:
“I do not think I can work in this sector much longer before it takes my health and living standards to its lowest.”
“The people at my level in the organisation have had no meaningful pay rise for 10+ years the odd 1% cost of living increase then to be told that we are getting paid more than we should be. Even more frustrating when as an organisation we seem to be getting a circa 20% increase to the hourly rate we charge yet none has come to us.”
“We are not being recognised as skilled workers, our rate of pay is poor and I feel post pandemic this is why the care sector is struggling to find staff and quality staff at best, I used to work 70 plus hours per week to make up my wages because I had to, I now am based at home but I do need to go out on visits in my car, with the rising cost of fuel this is very hard to do when you need to go and support someone in need.”
“I live within my means and do the odd over time and sleep over to make my wages stretch further I am crying daily, I'm terrified and sick with worry due to basically having no money. I have an 11 month old baby and we can't do anything nice for her. Everything is rising and I can't pay for anything.”
“As social care workers we are very undervalued and we need help.~”
Therefore to maintain the status quo and retain social care services within private or voluntary structures will not only be detrimental to workers but to the people they care for.

Unite is fully opposed to any form of private provision within the NCS. (See above)

There are clear omissions from the Bill including local accountability and democratic control. For example Unite has concerns over the role of Care Boards; how they will be set up and who will have positions on these Boards. From what we understand the Boards will be made up of mostly, if not completely unelected individuals appointed to deliver social care services, thereby removing the statutory duty of local authorities to do this. Unite would therefore wish to see trade union representation on all local Boards.
Presently local authorities operate within a collective bargaining structure. Decisions made within Local Authorities are shared with trade union representatives. While the Policy Memorandum alludes to a collective agreement, it states that these are now no more than ‘potential mechanisms with the paper stating that the “Scottish Government will consider the most appropriate arrangements to advise NCS on these issues.” This appears to be a watering down of one of the most important elements of delivering a NCS that would deliver for those working within it.
Unite believes it is vital to retain local decision-making. Local authorities must therefore retain the position of the main social care provider in order to maintain accountability. The plans as they are presented, appear to involve a power grab on local authority functions and local accountability at a time when local democracy is in the spotlight for its response during the pandemic. It is well documented that making decisions based on local knowledge and circumstances ultimately led to better outcomes.
We have also witnessed first-hand how some unelected bureaucrats can by-pass the democratic process through the existing mechanism of, and involvement with, Integrated Joint Boards (IJB) which we feel haven’t worked in favour of the recipients of social care or staff.
In particular two specific situations can be used as examples that highlight concerns over where responsibilities lie as well as overall accountability.
Firstly the Edinburgh IJB took a unilateral decisions to close five council-run care homes in Edinburgh without liaising first with Edinburgh City Council. This decision was disastrous for not only the residents involved but the workers employed within the care home(s).
This ill-conceived and arrogant action caused distress to some of the most vulnerable citizens in our communities and the IJB was forced to pause the closures and initiate a public consultation.
Another example is the decision by the executive of Edinburgh Integrated Joint Board to outsource the call-handling of ATEC 24 commonly known as the Community Alarm Service to Newham Borough Council in London. The company had no local geographical knowledge of the community and did not follow the correct protocols potentially putting lives at risk. Staff and community alarm users were subjected to radical changes without proper consultation and negotiation resulting in a ballot for strike action. For Unite this was another ill-thought out decision, which has quite rightly been rectified. However the taxpayer cannot continue to pick up the bill for ill-conceived and ill-thought out decisions made on the whim of a few ill-informed individuals.
Decisions about social care services must stay within the realms of those with the knowledge, experience and clarity of judgement, skills which are not clouded by issues of profitability.

A fundamental recommendation of the Feeley Review was that the Fair Work Conventions Social Care Inquiry recommendations should be adopted in full to ensure workers have an ‘effective voice’ through the establishment of a sector level body. The report scrutinises the commissioning and procurement processes which has led to a race to the bottom for social care workers terms and conditions as a result of the marketization of care. With 83% females working in the sector (which is projected to grow to 300,000 from 230,000) the report highlights the serious deficiencies in the commissioning and procurement process and the changes needed to address the high attrition levels and revolving door of recruitment and lack of retention which includes poor pay, zero hour contracts and lack of opportunities for progression.
Unite is aware that while there is presently a number of working groups in existence, political will is stalling any implementation. Unite would therefore pose the question how serious are the Government in delivering the recommendations as set up by the Feeley Report?

Unite the Union would have concerns regarding the staff, currently employed by the NHS that come under the management structure of the IJBs, if the plans that are being put forward are to change the employer to the proposed NCS Care Boards.

Unite believe this could pave the way for the wholesale privatisation of a large section of the NHS, a decision which would be vehemently opposed by trade unions and we believe, also by the wider general public.
We remain very concerned generally about the centralisation of functions and loss of democratic control and accountability which the proposed transfer of services will bring. Care Services are in serious crisis and the framework bill merely looks to be ‘tinkering round the edges’ with a serious plan to reduce waiting time for services and removal of bed blocking in the NHS wanting. There are no proposals in the bill to address the serious concerns of the workforce who worked hard through the pandemic caring for the vulnerable with little reward. The pandemic shone a light on the poor terms and conditions of many social care workers such as those working for companies for years but with no sick pay provision apart from the statutory.

The STUC has published a paper on the financialisation of care: Profiting from care: Why Scotland can’t afford privatised social care. This report considers the financialisation of care and links profiteering from care directly with poorer outcomes on quality of care.
The report published in June 2022 shows a clear correlation between for-profit care providers and systematically worse outcomes for workers, care users and the taxpayer. The paper then rightly ask the question: why should we continue allowing them to provide care services at all? A question that also baffles the members of Unite.
The report states:
A considerable UK and international literature already exists on these issues which the review could have drawn on. For instance, a 2016 report found that, of the £776 a week then considered the ‘fair price’ of a UK nursing care bed, some £277 - over a third - was accounted for by the cost of capital, with investors demanding returns of up to 12% a year
A further study in 2019 found that, of the care sector’s £15bn annual income, £1.5bn (10%) leaked out via rent, dividends, interest payments, profits and directors’ fees.7 A 2020 report looking specifically at HC-One found that it reported an artificial £12.2m operating loss, while extracting £47.2m in dividends, rent and interest paid to related parties.
The extraction of profits from the care sector to shareholders is an abomination. Care is not a commodity to be traded but a right to be enjoyed by all of us, and free at the point of need and Unite strongly believes, it should be delivered by the public sector. This is a fundamental principle for Unite and one which we apparently diverge completely from the Scottish Government which outwardly sees a need to include private provision with the social care model.
Unite would argue that the profiteering model failed spectacularly during the Covid-19 pandemic in private nursing homes particularly. For the Scottish Government to then not question these failings when considering how a NCS could operate is, for Unite, a clear and very damaging omission and fundamental failing on the part of the Government.
The proposals would see the transfer of funding from local government to the NCS, by centralising one third of all council spending equating to around £4 billion a year, and would represent the largest removal of funds away from democratic control to unelected Boards in the history of local government.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has also produced a report looking at the funding arrangements for a NCS. “National Care Service will mean big changes and challenges for Scottish council funding”

IFS have also raised concerns over how much each council’s funding should be reduced by when social care responsibilities are transferred to the National Care Service and this needs to be fully considered.
The IFS report states:
It might seem obvious that it should be the amount it is projected to spend on social care services, because that is the amount it will no longer need to spend. But suppose that a council had set higher-than-average council tax and spent less on other services so as to provide a better-than-average standard of social care services in its area. Simply deducting what it was projecting to spend on social care would mean that residents of this council would continue to pay this higher council tax and see less spent on other services. But over time as social care services in their area converged to the standards set out by the new National Care Service, they would no longer be benefiting from better-than-average social care services. That could easily be seen as unfair.
Unite believes that this method of delivery could have the potential for an unequal and inconsistent distribution of funding and services. There is an assumption contained within the Bill that each Care Board will have the knowledge and experience to ensure a consistent standard applies across all Scotland’s regions. However without suitable accountability and robust monitoring in place, which by coincidence exists presently within public service provision, this can only be an ideal to which they are aiming.
Indeed the additional costs in the bureaucracy required to ensure accountability and monitoring takes place, are likely to be removed from the budgets of social care services.

Yes. In order for a National Care Service (NCS) to implement good principles, there is a basic need for appropriate resources to fund services. The money to ‘fix’ the decades-old problem of social care requires a wider tax base to finance it rather than concentrating on National Insurance as has been introduced by the UK Government, which will impact the incomes of working people and will fall heaviest on the lowest paid.
Unite believes that measures such as a ‘wealth’ tax on property and unearned income are a fairer way to properly finance the shortcomings in the social care system which had been cruelly exposed during the continuing 18-month Covid crisis. Any solution to social care needed to go ‘hand-in-hand’ with a massive cash injection for the NHS, which has seen waiting times for vital procedures escalate.
However far from being a burden, social care should be considered as an investment in a more equal, healthy and happier society as well as an economic contributor. Recent research commissioned by Enable suggests that the social care sector contributes more than £5.1 billion GVA to the Scottish economy and supports around 300,000 jobs. The report also shows a total of 206,410 jobs (155,330 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs)) are directly provided in the wider social care sector. A further 49,510 jobs (37,260 FTEs) in suppliers and supporting industries are supported by the sector while 41,100 jobs (30,930 FTEs) are supported by social care employees’ spending in the economy.
Furthermore the report goes on to say:
“..raising pay for Scotland’s frontline social care workers will provide a significant boost to the national economy – generating additional tax revenues, reducing the need for in-work benefits, and enabling higher spending in the real economy. Moreover, many of the resources that could be invested in Social Care, particularly preventive services, would help save money elsewhere.”
Unite would want to see social care delivered on a universal free at point of need basis. Publicly provided social care similar to the set-up of the NHS, backed up with a separate national independent living service (to avoid the medicalisation of disability) and properly funded through progressive taxation. All social care workers should have access to training and have their skills recognised and be covered by a national collective agreement and pay structure.

No.

No

See previous comments and the undernoted information which was an appendix to the Unite response to the previous National Care Service for Scotland Consultation.
We wish to restate our overall position on a NCS and therefore include the full outline below.

Unite Scotland response to National Care Service for Scotland Consultation
Summary of key recommendations:
• The National Care Service must be publicly owned/run, universal and free at point of need
• Privatisation in care has failed. There must be no place for the private sector within the social care service and NCS.
• Local government must be maintained as the provider of choice democratically delivering for local communities
• The profit element must be removed and decisions based on need
• A complete ban on zero hours contracts in social care in all circumstances and the introduction of enhanced sick pay for all together with consistent and decent pension provision
• The only Effective voice is the trade union
• Establishing sectoral agreements providing collective bargaining for all social care workers, where these workers are not currently covered by such agreements
• Ensure Human Rights are at the core of the delivery of services
We believe these recommendations are both fair and achievable within a National Care Service.
Introduction
The fact that we have increasing demands for social care should not have come as a surprise to most. It is well documented that we have an ageing population and we are all living longer. With this comes inevitable health and care issues that will only increase as we age.
However the crisis in the care sector is not only the result of an ageing population, but of a chronic lack of investment, government dithering, privatisation and deregulation that has created the perfect storm which was exacerbated during the Covid crisis. We saw a complete breakdown in communication which left underpaid-overworked staff literally thrown to the wolves by employers. Those employers showed a complete lack of ability and leadership during a public health emergency. Unite therefore believes that the present system for delivering care is an outdated and failing system which is harming, not caring, for our most vulnerable people and requires radical change and we should aim to remove the private sector from social care as quickly as possible.
The task involved in overhauling social care is so huge that it has been kicked into the long grass by numerous governments despite a number of reports, consultations and commissions being carried out over decades; one failed exercise after another has meant that social care has remained broadly unchanged.
Unite has introduced a Social Care Manifesto which highlighted 5 key areas that require to be addressed. Many of these key demands are reflected throughout this submission. The demands include:
• A properly funded and publicly owned National Care Service which involves participation from the trade unions and local government.
• A minimum of £15 an hour for all social care workers.
• A minimum floor of terms and conditions for all social care workers which includes two 30 mins paid rest breaks, access to enhanced sick pay and consistent provision of pensions.
• The establishment of collective bargaining in all areas of social care services including the Third sector and private sector.
• The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) registration fee to be fully funded by the Scottish government.
Social Care Principles
At its most basic, social care is a fundamental human right to a decent and dignified life including decent treatment. All public bodies have a duty to protect these human rights. Human rights should therefore lie at the heart of a public care system that delivers dignified and accountable care to the people who use it. Too many people have been failed by the system as it is presently set up.
In order for a National Care Service (NCS) to implement good principles, there is a basic need for appropriate resources to fund services. The money to ‘fix’ the decades-old problem of social care requires a wider tax base to finance it rather than concentrating on National Insurance as has been introduced by the UK Government, which will impact the incomes of working people and will fall heaviest on the lowest paid.
Unite believes that measures such as a ‘wealth’ tax on property and unearned income are a fairer way to properly finance the shortcomings in the social care system which had been cruelly exposed during the continuing 18-month Covid crisis. Any solution to social care needed to go ‘hand-in-hand’ with a massive cash injection for the NHS, which has seen waiting times for vital procedures escalate.
However far from being a burden, social care should be considered as an investment in a more equal, healthy and happier society as well as an economic contributor. Recent research commissioned by Enable suggests that the social care sector contributes more than £5.1 billion GVA to the Scottish economy and supports around 300,000 jobs. The report also shows a total of 206,410 jobs (155,330 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs)) are directly provided in the wider social care sector. A further 49,510 jobs (37,260 FTEs) in suppliers and supporting industries are supported by the sector while 41,100 jobs (30,930 FTEs) are supported by social care employees’ spending in the economy.
Furthermore the report goes on to say:
“..raising pay for Scotland’s frontline social care workers will provide a significant boost to the national economy – generating additional tax revenues, reducing the need for in-work benefits, and enabling higher spending in the real economy. Moreover, many of the resources that could be invested in Social Care, particularly preventive services, would help save money elsewhere.”
Unite would want to see social care delivered on a universal free at point of need basis. Publicly provided social care similar to the set-up of the NHS, backed up with a separate national independent living service (to avoid the medicalisation of disability) and properly funded through progressive taxation. All social care workers should have access to training and have their skills recognised and be covered by a national collective agreement and pay structure.
Local government
Unite believes it is vital to retain local decision-making. Local authorities must retain the position of the main provider in order to maintain accountability. The plans as they are presented, appear to involve a power grab on local authority functions and local accountability at a time when local democracy is in the spotlight for its response during the pandemic. It is well documented that making decisions based on local knowledge and circumstances ultimately led to better outcomes.
The challenge comes from increased responsibility within existing budgets. Local Authorities have been struggling to manage budgets that have clearly been insufficient to cover the social care needs or demand of an ageing population. Unite would guard against using the funding issue as a reason to remove local authority powers or for further centralisation of responsibilities which we see as an erosion of local democracy and instead provide local authorities with the additional funding required to allow them to provide the necessary services at an appropriate level.
Essential services such as social care must continue to be delivered by local authorities with decisions being made by, and as close to those that require the service as, possible. However social care is inextricably linked to other services such as housing, education and other welfare services. Each of these local authority services link to provide the best possible social care outcomes and Unite would wish to ensure these links are maintained and strengthened within a National Care Service delivered through local authorities.
Local government must therefore be the provider of choice in social care; democratically delivering for the communities they serve. This does not detract from a body that has an over-arching responsibility for ensuring delivery; the two should complement each other. The role of a National Care Service must be to act to oversee delivery at a local level; to ensure there is no variance of quality or funding of service; to drive up service standards and to ensure workers have the skills required to carry out their role. However councils must be given the resources to do this in a way that allows them to do it properly. Underfunding of social care services and the outsourcing of work is a contributory factor in the demise of the service to the detriment of the most vulnerable in our communities.
Profit and Privatisation
The Third and Private sectors have engaged in a race to the bottom that has undermined terms and conditions for social care workers for decades due to the way services have been commissioned. This has negatively impacted not only on the workforce, but also in the quality of service provided.
Privatisation has failed and any move to further centralise social care, will also fail. We cannot afford to set in motion a scheme which may take years to implement and years to unravel when it fails during which time the most vulnerable may fall through the net while we watch on. We have to get this right at the outset. The Scottish Government must listen.
Effective Voice, IJB’s and trade union representation
Unite wishes to make it clear that ‘effective voice’ means trade unions are recognised as the ‘voice’ of workers and that a fragmented approach to delivery of improved terms and conditions is not acceptable. We also believe that there must be a levelling up rather than levelling down of standards and minimum standards must start from a negotiated position.
Unite understands that within the NCS, the IJB and NIJB will be responsible for delivering a commissioning and procurement strategy and social care services. However we must be mindful of the democratic accountability of these boards as Unite has experiences where decisions made by IJB’s have been legitimately questioned. For example Unite raised concerns over the recent Edinburgh care home closures which has highlighted the glaring lack of effective voice in IJB decision making. Staff in four care homes were told of closures before the IJB met and without reference to the negotiating protocols in place at a local authority. These are staff and union members who are employed by the local authority however an unaccountable board subsequently then made the decision and bypassed the negotiating machinery in place. (The circumstances surrounding the care home closures in Edinburgh is covered within Appendix A.) In that situation there has been no reference to the formal negotiating machinery including failure to negotiate with trade unions. Unite has therefore legitimate concerns that this undemocratic process could be transferred via IJB’s to the NCS. IJB’s have been roundly criticised for a lack of democratic accountability and Unite would question whether they are indeed the best mechanism for delivering social care.
Unite is calling for immediate implementation of sectoral collective bargaining for all social care workers where they are not currently covered by Scottish wide collective bargaining structures and agreements and a minimum floor of terms and conditions including, amongst others, access to enhanced sick pay and consistent provision of pensions for all workers. We need to make social care an attractive career option and delivering well-paid work and the professionalisation of social care will help to do that.
Workers with an effective voice that is heard are motivated, confident, feel valued and respected leading to better support with better outcomes. This does not come from exploiting workers, under paying and under valuing them and lowering standards to increase profit margins. It comes from levelling up to professional status the job they do and the rate of pay they should expect. Professionals should be able to make assessments that are based on need instead of assessments that are financially driven.
As stated previously trade unions are the best way to deliver an effective worker voice. The best practice guidance for Fair Work in Scottish Public Procurement provides very clear examples of what constitutes effective voice as well as the other Fair Work principles with unions being cited as the clearest example of effective voice. The Fair Work First criteria also signposts clear expectations on Fair Work for organisations being funded by the Scottish government and the Fair Work Convention has developed toolkits to assist employers and union reps to promote effective voice.
Pay
Unite is calling for a minimum of £15 per hour for all social care workers. A report on pay for care workers from Income Data Research’s (IDR) shows that less than a fifth of care employers set their lowest rate at the level of the statutory minimum , the National Living Wage, which is currently £8.91. But while most pay above the NLW, the median rate for care assistants, at £9.29, is only 4.3% above the legal floor, and even the upper quartile, the point at which three-quarters pay below, which stands at £9.98, is only 6.7% above it.
A report by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) highlighted the dire situation within the sector in the UK :
Staffing is the single biggest challenge facing adult social care: a fractured, majority female workforce, delivering an essential public service, on low pay with high levels of job insecurity. At any one time, the sector has approximately 122,000 vacancies. TUC analysis shows seven out of 10 care workers earn less than £10 per hour. 24 per cent of the sector are employed on zero-hours contracts. This increases to 43 per cent when just accounting for the domiciliary care workforce.
By contrast, most supermarkets pay their shop floor staff above the care sector median, in some cases well above. With women making up around 80% of the social care sector it is vital they have a visible structured pay and career path in order for them to make social care a positive career choice. This combined with decent pay levels and the professional status across the industry will help to attract and retain workers within the sector.
Zero hours
Unite has raised concerns over the use of zero hours contracts within the social care sector. There is misleading information that some workers ‘prefer’ to work on such contracts to fit in with other work, home or education commitments.
However the reality is starker. Unite is aware of punitive punishment being meted out by private companies on workers who refuse or may be unable to comply with the working hours requested of them. The so-called ‘choices’ about the flexibility of zero hours contracts are often used against workers when they seek to increase or reduce hours or ask for time off, with some left feeling threatened that they could lose their jobs if they do not accept the hours they have been asked to work; leaving them feeling helpless and pressured.
What individuals are looking for is real flexibility that would allow them to fit in these commitments with their social care employment commitment without feeling pressurised or intimidated. This should not require zero hour contracts, which as well as being insecure and exploitative, also allows employers to undercut wages and avoid paying holiday and sick pay. Instead what should take the place of such contracts is negotiation between individuals or their trade union and the employer around supporting the commitments people have within a formal employment contract with guaranteed paid hours.
Procurement
Unite has previously raised concerns re the implementation of the minimum terms and conditions within the commissioning and procurement process specifically that the Scottish Government claims that they are unable to require organisations to pay the real living wage or adhere to a set of minimum terms and conditions. Unite therefore welcomes the recent announcement by the Scottish Government that they will now be using the procurement process to ensure that companies seeking contracts must make the payment of the real living wage a condition of obtaining contracts.
Unite hopes that this is the start of a process of fair commissioning and procurement including the requirement to adopt collective bargaining throughout the procurement process which we will continue to pursue. We would wish to know how the Scottish Government aim to ensure that the private sector complies with this, including monitoring and evidence provided of fair work which Unite would wish to see extended to include trade union access, trade union recognition and collective bargaining. We would also like to see penalties introduced that were sufficient enough to deter non-compliance.
However in terms of a National Care Service we would see the service being delivered in-house within the public sector and minimum terms and conditions and standards should automatically apply. In the intervening period, any commissioning and procurement should be limited and the NCS should look to take these services into the public sector as quickly as possible.

See previous comments on accountability and democratic oversight.

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