Decision details

That the Executive approved Option 3 – “Uplift including National Living Wage for frontline carers and recognising inflationary pressures” and the following increases in fee levels for 2024/25, with the proposals to come into effect from 1^st April 2024. The table at paragraph below, summarises the proposed uplifts for the recommended Option 3 and further detail is set out in detail throughout section 3 of the report.

Table 1

Reason for Recommendations

·       The National Living Wage (NLW) increase for 2024/25 is 9.8%. This compares to 9.7% in 2023/24. In addition to this we know that providers continue to face broader inflationary pressures. 

·       The care and support market in North Northamptonshire continues to experience difficulties with the recruitment and retention of care staff with a vacancy rate of 9.8% (2.2% lower than in 2021/22) and turnover rate of 24% for care providers (2% lower than in 2021/22).

·       Whilst this is an improving trend the data continues to demonstrate that providers are facing challenges in recruiting and retaining care staff. This is caused by competition from other industries as well as the legacy of Covid-19.

·       The ability of providers to recruit and retain a sufficient workforce is one of the key challenges and risks for the sector. By effectively targeting our annual uplifts we support our contracted care providers ability to develop strategic responses to workforce challenges, including offering rates of pay that are competitive with other local sectors.

·       The position in North Northamptonshire is in keeping with the national picture. Alongside targeting our inflationary uplifts, we continue to work in partnership with our contracted providers to make social care an attractive career proposition within North Northamptonshire.

·       During 2022/23 we have offered fully funded training to care staff working within the independent care sector and continued our work to develop our social care workforce strategy. However, fee uplifts remain a crucial lever in ensuring providers are able to support social care as being an attractive career option for people in North Northamptonshire.

·       There continues to be a need to utilise non contracted providers and to commission individual packages of care with spot providers. Whilst there has been a significant decrease in the number of spot providers commissioned, these providers continue to be comparatively more expensive on a unit (hour or week) basis.

·       Spot provision is costly to the Council and the proposed uplift seeks to positively influence existing contract framework supply through retention and sustainability whilst also incentivising an increase in supply through levering better rates of pay and reward for our contracted providers. Work continues to minimise our utilisation of spot providers and to focus our commissioning activity solely with our contracted providers.

·       Our strategy is to focus our development and commissioning activity specifically with our contracted providers. Alongside this fee uplift we are focused on utilising our enhanced provider offer for contracted providers that includes funded training and an enhanced quality monitoring and support function. This enables the Council to support improvement in the quality of its contracted care providers, secure a sustainable market of high-quality providers and secure value for money in our independent care spend.

Alternative Options Considered: The alternative options, in summary, considered included:

Option 1: Do nothing and apply no uplifts (not recommended)

Option 2: Targeting uplifts at particular service types (not recommended)

Option 3: Uplift including NLW for frontline carers and recognising inflationary pressures (Recommended Option)

Option 4:Lower uplift to the whole market including spot and framework providers (Not recommended)

The alternative options are presented in more detail in section 5 of the report.