Shaw Trust – Written evidence (FFF0008)

‘Designing a public services workforce fit for the future’ inquiry

Shaw Trust and Homes 2 Inspire’s submission to the House of Lords Public Services Committee on the children’s social care workforce

Introduction and about Shaw Trust and Homes 2 Inspire

1.1 Shaw Trust and its children’s homes service, Homes 2 Inspire (H2I, part of the Shaw Trust Group), welcome the opportunity to contribute to this critical House of Lords Public Services Committee inquiry on the staffing crisis in children and young people’s services.  As a charity owned, not-for-profit deliverer, we feel strongly that the challenge is systemic, and not transitory due to Covid, and we offer our recommendations for your consideration.

1.2 Shaw Trust’s mission is to create social opportunity, social mobility and social equity through gaining and maintaining good work using a ‘Child-to-Career’ framework. Many barriers to employability stem from disadvantages and barriers throughout life, especially early in life.

1.3 As the UK’s largest not-for-profit children’s home provider, H2I is a growing, Ofsted registered, children’s homes legal entity. It currently has 30 homes with a plan to open a further 8 this year.  It is a Top-12 Ofsted children’s homes provider by size, with the highest percentage of homes rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by a margin nearly double that of any other major provider. 

1.4 Shaw Trust delivers pioneering and scalable provision for children and young people in care and care leavers, and those Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), through customised integrated services across, created and commissioned in partnership with local authorities. 

2.              Executive Summary

2.1 The quality and access to children and young people’s social care is negatively impacted by a structurally inadequate workforce, placed under increasing demand after years of reduced funding, and predatory and rent-seeking financial practices. As with the adult social care workforce, the pressure on staffing of children and young people’s services is due to low pay against the backdrop of an ever-increasing cost of living crisis, high-churn, tightening labour markets (including the Brexit factor), exit from the sector to higher earning and less demanding employment alternatives, retirement and resignation, and the impact of Covid-19 on staff availability.

2.2 Children’s care homes, and their workforce, are under increasing pressure to provide more regulated provision that meets both Ofsted’s standards and the expectations of the Children’s Commissioner for children in care. The current pressure for local authorities to care for their children locally is also disrupting the current model, and rightly so. However, the consequence is that insufficient new staff can be attracted. Notwithstanding the government’s welcome recently announced aspiration for an increase in open and secure children’s homes places, the system remains under pressure and is under-provisioned.

2.3 The introduction of national standards for supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds is a vital development. However, it will create further resourcing pressures for providers at a time when the impact of Covid-19 has directly or indirectly resulted in a sharp increase in the required provision. This coincides with the already raised pressure to provide in-county place-based provision.

2.4 We believe the key to creating a robust and low-churn workforce is professionalisation to a national framework standard that goes beyond the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) for the sector. This should encompass pay, terms and conditions of services, and career progression pathways appropriate to serve the needs of the children, law and regulation, and public expectation.

2.5 The role of private equity and For Profits in the children’s care home system needs addressing. Predatory and rent-seeking financial practices by investment firms, hedge funds and private owners, which are often based in tax havens and have extremely complex ownership structures, have placed unmanageable financial and human costs on the UK care sector.  We see that this is destructive to stabilisation and the long-term resilience and professionalisation of children’s care.

2.6 Key to improving education, training and employment outcomes for young people leaving care, is integrated, joined up, wrap-around support for their transition to adulthood. In particular, care leavers need to be supported to study and/or find fulfilling, rewarding employment, in order to avert the NEET risk they face. Through our ‘child to career’ approach this is a particular priority for Shaw Trust, and H2I, through our pioneering supported care leavers accommodation. In Gloucestershire, our contract to support children and young people includes a substance misuse service, young people’s housing advice service, youth crime prevention, youth offending service, child exploitation specialist support, a NEET team with a specialist element for care leavers, and youth work. We deliver this from child to career through innovative, joined up commissioning of services by the local authority that improves outcomes for the children and young people supported in line with the council’s objectives for them.

Key children’s social care workforce challenges and recruiting, retaining and training the workforce

3.              Overview of workforce challenges

3.1 The quality and access to children and young people’s social care is negatively impacted by a structurally inadequate workforce, which is under great strain to cope with increasing demand after years of reduced funding, and predatory and rent-seeking financial practices. As with the adult social care workforce, pressure on staffing of children and young people’s services is due to low pay against the backdrop of an ever-increasing cost of living crisis, high-churn, tightening labour markets (including the Brexit factor), exit from the sector to better paid and less demanding employment alternatives, retirement and resignation, and the impact of Covid-19 on staff availability.

3.2 Children’s care homes, and their workforce, are under increasing pressure to provide more regulated provision that meets Ofsted’s standards, and the expectations of the Children’s Commissioner for children in care. The current pressure for local authorities to care for their children locally is also disrupting the current model, and rightly so. But, the consequence is that insufficient new staff can be attracted, due to the terms and conditions available.  Notwithstanding the government’s welcome recently announced aspiration for an increase in open and secure children’s homes places, the system remains under pressure and under-provisioned.

3.3 The introduction of national standards for supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds, enforced through Ofsted inspections, is a vital development. Shaw Trust and H2I have been calling for this and believe it should also be extended to cover supported accommodation for care leavers aged 18 and over. Notwithstanding the £17m investment to support the introduction and inspection of standards, it will create further resourcing pressures for providers at a time when the impact of Covid-19 has directly or indirectly resulted in a sharp increase in the required provision. This coincides with the already raised pressure to provide in-county place-based provision. The new regime will create further resourcing pressures for H2I and other providers at a time when the impact of Covid-19 has directly or indirectly resulted in a sharp increase in the required provision. This coincides with pressure to provide in-county place-based unregistered provision and address the perception of excessive profiteering.

3.4 All providers across the sector are facing serious staffing pressures, particularly in relation to high-churn/turnover, high vacancies and exit of care workers from the sector. H2I’s children’s homes are no exception. Anecdotal evidence shows pay in other sectors is a significant pull factor alongside  the emotional challenges, unsociable hours and shift patterns and lack of progression opportunities in children’s residential care. Two thirds of H2I staff are under 40 and two thirds are female, making it a younger and more female than the general labour force.

Low pay

3.5 The sector faces the particular problem of low paid staff. Historically, care worker median hourly pay was higher than most low skill roles, but it has shifted in recent years, and is now lower than retail and cleaning. Low starting salaries and few opportunities for pay progression lead to many leaving the sector prematurely.

3.6 Staff training is also costly and all new staff are required to complete a QCF Level 3 Diploma in Residential Childcare within 18 months of appointment.  Residential care has also always provided a starting point for those wanting to move into other roles within the wider social care sector and related areas.

3.7 To ensure children, young people and adult social care is sustainable and delivers what our society needs and expects, we must pay for quality and outcomes. If we don’t recognise the monetary value of the experience of people who use care, it will inevitably be under-rewarded and under-valued by the system. Workforce and improved outcomes are interlinked. We must pay for quality, and investing in the workforce is key to achieving that.

3.8 Shaw Trust have committed to paying its H2I staff the Real Living Wage. We believe in the importance of supporting and retaining our staff which aligns with our charitable aims of promoting Good Work. However, this commitment is often above and beyond market rates and commissioners struggle to match it. They are often forced towards providers who undercut the market with short term aims. 

3.9 Staff and property costs are the two most significant factors affecting the children’s residential social care bed price. The bed price is determined by the local authority’s price envelope, and the market which determines the salary point for staff. The lack of resource in the system, coupled with cross-subsidisation, results in underinvestment in quality. Wages for care staff do not represent the true value of their work.

3.10 Many Commissioners do not allow for indexation over the life of the contract, or this is not guaranteed even when capped at Consumer Prices Index level, creating significant cost pressures for providers.  In addition, the services that are provided are a VAT exempt service, so providers cannot recover it. This is particularly challenging when a significant amount of costs relate to property cost.   

Other recruitment and retention challenges

3.11 Issues around retention of the children’s social care workforce go beyond pay. Many in the workforce can achieve a better work life balance in less demanding sectors in the justice system, police, social work, health, adult social care or other unrelated fields, including retail. Retention is also affected by children’s social care work being used as a stepping stone into other careers.

3.12 Children’s social care work is demanding and often at unsociable hours, with little scope for flexible working. This is even among those who have a vocational calling and belief in the importance of the work and the value it brings.  The high churn of social workers disrupts the stability of the system overall, and the lives of individual children and young people, who face frequent changes of the key people supporting them in their lives as a result. This creates instability and disjointed care and support in their lives, contributing to and exacerbating feelings of abandonment, and undermining their emotional wellbeing.

3.13 We believe the key to creating a robust and low-churn workforce is professionalisation to a national framework standard that goes beyond the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) for the sector. This should encompass pay, terms and conditions of services, and career progression pathways appropriate to serve the needs of the children, law and regulation, and public expectation.

3.14 Urgent action is needed to address the impact of staffing pressures and shortages on wellbeing. Impact includes emotional exhaustion, anxiety, stress and burnout of staff, all exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. Levels of staff sickness have nearly doubled since the pandemic began with 9.5 days on average lost to sickness in 2020/21 compared to 5.1 days before the pandemic.

3.15 The Covid-19 pandemic has caused long-standing pressures on care placements to grow, say Ofsted, with long waiting lists and children being placed far from their families, or in unregistered homes. There is greater risk of children and young people becoming vulnerable or falling into the ‘invisible’ or ‘unknown’ category. Children’s services and care homes are increasingly working with children with more complex needs, often with custodial or welfare issues. These children require experienced, trained and committed staff who are paid to support them properly. A reduction in EU workers has also impacted the sector. Even though H2I have not overly drawn on or targeted recruitment towards an EU migrant workers, they are now impacted by increased competition for domestic workforces from other providers. Covid has also driven some positive innovation and change. The appetite to operate at pace, and encourage and fund new ways of working, could now help to develop better, more coordinated care for people delivered by local services working more effectively together.

Meeting increasing demand

3.16 A future projection suggests the number of children in care could reach almost 100,000 by 2025. This is largely driven by children staying in care for longer, rather than more children entering care. This will create further resourcing pressures for H2I and other providers at a time when the impact of Covid-19 has directly or indirectly resulted in a sharp increase in the required provision. This coincides with pressure to provide in-county place-based provision and a need to address the perception of excessive profiteering in the sector.

3.17 To ensure children and young people’s social care is sustainable and delivers what our society needs and expects, we must recognise the need for quality outcomes. If we don’t recognise the monetary value of the experience of people who use care, it will inevitably be under-rewarded and under-valued by the system. Workforce and improved outcomes are interlinked. We must pay for quality, invest in the workforce, and ultimately deliver value for money through better outcomes for local authorities and the children and young people within them.

Private equity versus VCSEs

3.18 The role of private equity and For Profits in the children’s care home system needs addressing. Predatory and rent-seeking financial practices by investment firms, hedge funds and private owners, which are often based in tax havens and have extremely complex ownership structures, have placed unmanageable financial and human costs on the UK care sector.  We see that this is destructive to stabilisation and the long-term resilience and professionalisation of children’s care.

3.19 There are high set up costs for providers who establish a service with children and young people’s long-term wellbeing in mind. They can often be undercut by more short-term, high risk, unregulated or unregistered providers. Both children and commissioners ultimately lose out by not taking a long-term holistic view of delivering high quality services. Underfunded commissioning impacts the workforce in a vicious circle; staffing ratios which effect both children and the work life balance and pressure on staff; low starting pay and limited pay progression impacts retention; children who don’t see a continuity of supportive staff then experience worsening outcomes.

3.20 We believe that the care system should use public procurement frameworks that incentivise provision by voluntary, community and social enterprise providers (VCSEs). VCSEs reinvest their surpluses back into their services, are more focused on the needs of the children and young people in their care, and the priorities of their local authority commissioners. This is the approach Shaw Trust seeks to take through three levels of social value – through the programmes we run, providing our participants with additional support and funding pilots and innovation for children and young people through our charitable Foundation - and our ‘child to career’ provision.

3.21 The risk of collapse of large private equity-backed providers remains a constant threat to stability and continuity of care. Neither the CQC or Ofsted have the capacity nor the powers to intervene and prevent financial collapse. We also believe the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors are best placed to secure the best pay, terms and conditions, skills, progression and rewarding careers for the workforce, and most importantly, properly support and care for children, young people and their families and carers. VCSEs can better focus on the priorities of local authorities for their children and young people, while directing any contract surpluses (extracted as profit by private providers) towards further social value for local areas, communities and individuals.  Our model is to provide block placements to local authorities across a range of children’s homes for their exclusive use within their locality, enabling us to provide better outcomes for children. They have more access to the wrap around services that make placements more successful and there can be a more strategic approach to how children are referred, managed and transitioned. H2I’s annual education report provides evidence that education outcomes are far better when children and young people are placed within or close to their own local authority.

3.22 We welcome the ongoing MacAllister Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, and the Competition and Market Authority review into the sector. These inquires must seek to address how to stabilise, rebuild, retain, and attract a professional and rewarded workforce of children and young people’s care professionals. We also look forward to the findings of the Competition and Market Authority’s current review, particularly in relation to the role of private equity in the system. We hope the committee will be able to put the issues raised here to the government during the course of this important inquiry.

4. Structuring the workforce to enable better integration between services

4.1 Key to improving education, training and employment outcomes for young people leaving care, is integrated, joined up, wrap around support for their transition to adulthood. In particular, care leavers need to be supported to study and/or find fulfilling, rewarding employment, in order to avert the NEET risk they face. Through our ‘child to career’ approach this is a particular priority for Shaw Trust and H2I. We seek to deliver through our innovative, integrated care leavers and broader children and young people’s provision. In particular, we are seeing very good results through our recently launched Care Leavers provision, which we see as very scalable to other local authorities nationally.   

4.2 At Belinda Ferrison House, in Northamptonshire, H2I provides 24-hour support for young people, moving out of residential care, but not yet ready for semi or full independence. It specialises in the care, support and education of vulnerable care leavers and young adults through supported living services, outreach and training. Our purpose is to provide a high standard of accommodation and supportive environments for care leavers aged between 17-25 years old. This service ensures the care leavers are able to develop and maintain respect, self-reliance and self-care skills and enable them to make informed, age-appropriate decisions, concerning their present and future so they can achieve a successful transition into independence and adulthood. In particular, our aim is to prevent young people from becoming homeless, socially excluded and to enable them to maintain a tenancy when they leave care. The staffing team at Belinda Ferrison House assess the needs of the young people and assist them to build the skills required to live independently and ensuring a positive quality of life after care,  working in line with the ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes. The facility supports young people who have their own individual flat and tenancy preparing them to move onto their own tenancy with a further 3-months of ‘floating support’.  It is unregulated but strictly monitored, by the local authorities and H2I, to the same level as regulated local provision, and it has achieved outstanding results.  The local authorities own the facilities and the flats refurbished for this use.

4.3 Gloucestershire County Council has also awarded a contract over seven years, to H2I, to deliver ground-breaking specialist support at Trevone House, Gloucester – the first semi-independent living facility for care leavers of its kind in the country, supporting them to find their independence into adulthood. Trevone House includes support services, as well as accommodation for 19 young people to have their own semi- independent flat. There is also a well-being suite, which offers young people a place of safety and calm along with two specialist flats for young people needing additional support with their mental health needs. Our contract includes a substance misuse service, young people’s housing advice service, youth crime prevention, youth offending service, child exploitation specialist support, a NEET team with a specialist element for care leavers, and youth work. As stated, Shaw Trust’s interconnected approach in Gloucestershire, through the innovative joined up commissioning of services by the local authority, provides a holistic, integrated approach that improves outcomes for the CYP supported in line with the council’s objectives for them.

4.4 Shaw Trust also has experience of running leaving care services across the country working with young people who are looked after, and with those who have left care up to the age of 25. Social Workers and Pathway Advisers support young people in their transition into adulthood, including support with issues relating to accommodation, budgeting, health, education, training and employment.

5. The development of a workforce that involves users in the design and delivery of public services

5.1 Our Trevone House development has been designed and developed with the needs of Gloucestershire’s young people at its heart. To do this effectively, the council has worked closely with two of its young ambassadors, who have experience of living in care.  The ambassadors were also involved in creating the brief for the rigorous tender process, which saw H2I secure the contract. The facility launched earlier this year, a there have been local engagement events for the community to find out more about the development and works planned.

5.2 This highlights the importance and effectiveness of co-creation of commissioning/procurement and programme design and delivery with children, young people and their families. Formal co-creation and co-production processes with children, young people, families and carers should be built in at all phases of public service commissioning, design and delivery. This will ensure that public services are based on the lived experience and needs and aspirations of vulnerable children and young people, families and carers who use them.

February 2022