CARE home staff are reportedly not receiving the money they are due from a Scottish Government support fund – with the situation labelled a “disgrace” by union bosses.
Holyrood’s Covid Committee have been handed written evidence by Unison Scotland, which has criticised the fact the scheme is still not fully functional – while Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said she cannot understand who employers would not accept the “free money”.
The social care staff support fund was designed to protect the incomes of care workers if they fell ill with Covid-19 or had to self isolate.
READ MORE: Jeane Freeman defends support after care homes flagged staff shortages during Covid outbreak
In a written submission to the committee, the trade union said: “Poor staffing practices are still widespread in the sector – this means that large numbers of staff have no access to proper sick pay protections.
“This in turn meant that staff, if they either believed themselves to ill with Covid-19 or that they had been in contact with those who were, had the choice between taking a risk in going to work or feeding their families.”
Unison said the problem is worst in privately operated care homes, with some companies claiming they cannot interpret the regulations so will not pay out.
Other employers are using a very narrow definition of the hours a staff member works, leaving them considerably out of pocket, the union says.
The union's written submission said: “It is a disgrace that even now the scheme is in many cases still not fully functional – that this is the case is another sign that our care home system is not fit for purpose and needs radical reform.”
Scottish Labour MSP Alex Rowley asked Ms Freeman about the “significant failing”.
READ MORE: Care Inspectorate was warned 179 times over Scottish care home staff shortages
He said: “Many employers are still denying staff the payments which make the difference between them having to risk their own and their clients’ health.”
The Health Secretary said she will look into the issue.
She added: “Where any of the unions or any other party has evidence of an employer who is continuing to pay only statutory sick pay and not accessing the fund, then we would want to know that and try to understand with the employer what it is that is stopping them.
“Because in essence this is free money, if you like, to the employer.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel