16 December 2005
More than a quarter of care homes do not have enough staff and about half do not carry out mandatory security checks on new employees, the Commission for Social Care Inspection revealed this week.
In its first comprehensive report on social care in England, the CSCI drew attention to the precarious nature of many social services which were, it said, 'struggling to meet people's needs' with limited resources.
'Underlying all these issues we find chronic recruitment and retention problems,' said CSCI chair Dame Denise Platt at the launch of the report.
The scarcity of personnel meant that some care homes were not carrying out security checks on new staff, as required by the statutory National Minimum Standards for social care.
'There is some recklessness around the necessary checks because they need to get people into post quickly,' said Platt.
Only 49% of care homes for people with mental illnesses ensured that all references and police records were checked for all new members of staff. Only slightly more care homes for older people (52%), physically disabled people (58%), those with learning disabilities (57%) and children's homes (55%) met the NMS standard for recruitment, the CSCI found.
In 2003 – the latest year for which comparable data was available – there were twice as many vacancies (6%) in the social care sector than in other types of employment (3%). Over 30% of the social care posts are based at councils, where the vacancy rate for September 2004 was 10%.
Platt said that recruitment and retention was a particular problem in London and the South east, where one of the biggest competitors was the retail sector.
Noting that care workers earn an average weekly wage of £208.75 in the public sector and £171.50 in the private sector, the report argued that employers' 'inability or unwillingness' to increase wage rates 'needs to be addressed'.
David Behan, chief inspector at the CSCI, said that the creation of a more stable social care workforce was hindered by councils' reliance on spot purchasing rather than volume contracts from the private sector, as this meant providers could not reliably predict their workforce needs.
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