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COVID-19 Restrictions, September 2020

In the Scottish Parliament yesterday, the First Minister set out new restrictions aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.  Since that statement was made, SPAEN has received an increased number of enquiries about how and if this affects PA’s and unpaid carers.  The following statement from our CEO, Colin Millar, seeks to provide reassurance and guidance in response to these requests:

“SPAEN is aware that the Scottish Government has issued new restrictions aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19 through community transmission.  These regulations include restrictions on home visiting and this has led to many people asking whether this applies to Personal Assistants (PA’s) and unpaid carers.

SPAEN is clear that PA’s should continue, where possible and safe, to provide social care support to their employers following all the guidelines and regulations that have been in place since March of this year.  This includes personal and environmental hygiene, the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and self-isolating where the employer or employee shows any of the symptoms of COVID-19.

The same applies to unpaid carers, including those who have had to take on caring duties as a result of their regular care arrangements being removed or varied either by their local council home care service or care agency.

The provision of social care remains absolutely vital and cannot be interrupted by the increase in COVID-19 cases but should continue to be provided following all the guidelines and using the appropriate PPE as already advised.”

SPAEN members are able to access information on a range of COVID-19 guides and supports via the Member’s area on our website and there is also extensive guidance set out on the Scottish Government’s website.

PA’s and unpaid carers should continue to use appropriate PPE at all times to protect both themselves and those they are caring for and this includes the use of PPE even where the person being cared for or the person delivering the care or support is not showing any symptoms of COVID-19.

The Scottish Government has already committed to and made PPE available for PA’s and unpaid carers and our understanding is that this provision continues so should you require PPE, you can source this through local hubs in your area.

Any PA employer requiring support on the “furlough” scheme or seeking advice around self-isolating either as a result of their developing symptoms or their PA showing symptoms can contact us for specific advice and guidance on (01698) 250280, by e-mail to info@spaen.co.uk or through our Facebook or Twitter accounts.

It is vitally important that all social care support delivered in a person’s home or community setting is done so safely and that the guidance issued in March continues to be followed as this has remained unchanged.

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Welcome assurance received in relation to PPE

SPAEN’s CEO, Colin Millar, has welcomed the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport’s written assurance that the ongoing issue of Personal Assistants and their employers are struggling to access Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, Jeane Freeman MSP told the Chamber, “I need to apologise for the fact that we have not resolved this up until now.  This is a really important group of people, the individuals that they are caring for are very important individuals and there is no reason, at this point, why they cannot access PPE.  So my apology goes alongside my assurance that before I leave to go home tonight, we will have resolved this.”

She went on to state, “These Personal Assistants have my assurance that we will have resolved this by the end of today.”

The Cabinet Secretary subsequently followed up this Parliamentary statement with a letter to Colin repeating the apology for the delay and re-affirming her commitment to have this matter resolved, outlining the steps the Scottish Government are taking to ensure this is done swiftly.  You can view the full letter here.

Welcoming the commitment and renewed assurance, Colin said, “We are very grateful to the Cabinet Secretary and all MSP’s who’ve supported SPAEN in their calls to have this matter given the attention it deserves from the Scottish Government.  The delays have caused considerable distress and anger amongst many PA employers and their workers, who have continued to provide support and services despite the personal risk to them and their employers.”

“A quick resolution will ensure that people get the equipment they need to remain protected and SPAEN stands ready to work with the Scottish Government, CoSLA and any other partners to ensure this is achieved.  I would like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for her consideration and leadership in bringing this delay to an end.”

As soon as full details are available on the practical steps PA’s and employers can take to access PPE, we will update our News section, social media channels and will write direct to all our members.

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Charity chief calls for fundamental “review” of how PA employers are supported.

SPAEN’s CEO, Colin Millar, today issued an open letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport, the Convenor of the Health & Sport Committee, the Convenor of the Cross Party Group on Disability and all MSP’s with the Health brief in the Scottish Parliament calling for a “fundamental review into how Direct Payment recipients in Scotland are represented and supported at national and regional level at the earliest opportunity.”

His call comes on the back of repeated requests for access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Personal Assistant Employers and their PA’s, stating, “the cracks in Scotland’s social care system have been exposed and the lack of any kind of planning or cognisance of how Direct Payment recipients would be supported in such instances has clearly not been considered, leaving them exposed and vulnerable.”

Scottish Government estimates there are currently around 2,200 active PA employers in Scotland today, giving a potential PA workforce of between 4,400 and 6,600 individuals.

SPAEN has been calling on the Scottish Government to ensure these people are given equal priority and access to essential PPE, ensuring they can fully follow the Scottish Government’s own guidelines on safe working in social care settings.  The Scottish Government issued an e-mail address and telephone number for people wishing to report issues accessing PPE but SPAEN members are advising their calls are not being taken as they are not “Care Inspectorate” registered and e-mails continue to go “unanswered”.

Some PA employers are being told by their local authority that they will need to source their own PPE.

Colin draws parallels to the urgent care and attention given to other social care workers represented by unions or membership organisations and questions why PA employers are not being afforded the same support and consideration especially given that their right to choose a Direct Payment as a means of meeting their assessed social care needs is protected in law and should have equivalent affect as any of the other Self-directed Support Options.

“We’ve already had to write to the Cabinet Secretary requesting that Personal Assistants be explicitly included in the list of “social care key workers” as initial guidance omitted this, preventing many PA’s from accessing essential childcare or being questioned whether their journey to work was “essential.  It seems as though PA employers in particular are being forgotten at each and every turn.”

You can read the full open letter here.

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CEO Statement

Keeping our members and staff safe whilst continuing to be available to provide advice, guidance, support and assistance as and when required is SPAEN’s key priority and it is with this in mind that we have taken the decision to follow and implement, fully, the Scottish and UK Governments’ advice issued last evening and have taken a number of steps which will change how we do this.

From today (17.03.20), SPAEN’s office in Bellshill will remain closed. This will be constantly reviewed and we will continue to follow Government advice on when to re-open. As a consequence, all office and home visits scheduled will also be cancelled or re-scheduled for a later date. This is done primarily to ensure we do not put any of the people we work with at risk of transmission of Corona virus.

We are conscious that some people may be asymptomatic (have no symptoms) but may still be affected by and therefore pass on Corona virus so simply checking with our staff that they have no symptoms was not sufficiently reliable in seeking to keep you safe.

SPAEN has a very detailed and well-rehearsed Business Continuity Plan and this is now being implemented. This should ensure that you continue to receive the supports and services that you want and need throughout the period that the office is closed, with the exception of face-to-face visits.

For people wishing face-to-face support, we can facilitate video calling using our telephone system and this is available to every SPAEN member at all times. We’re glad we implemented this well in advance and hope that it eases some of the difficulty of not being able to provide home or office visits.

You should continue to phone the SPAEN telephone number (01698 250280) or e-mail info@spaen.co.uk (or the individual or service if you have their direct e-mail address) and we will continue to respond to all your enquiries. When phoning the SPAEN office, you will still be asked to select from 1 for Membership Services; 2 for Payroll services etc. Please continue to use these options as this will direct your enquiry to the right person.

Payroll and Managed Account customers should continue to submit timesheets or other requests to payroll@spaen.co.uk and these will be processed in the usual timescales. The deadlines for submitting payroll information remains the same, so please ensure you help us by having this information to us on time. If you normally post your timesheets, we will be collecting mail from the office so these will continue to be processed to.

I would re-iterate our advice to all PA employers – PLAN ahead. If you can, have casual contracts in place for emergency care and support if your PA is unable to attend work at short-notice. We are working with PA Network Scotland to develop an “emergency list” of available PA’s from all across Scotland.

If you require emergency cover, please get in touch and we’ll do what we can to link you with PA’s in your area however we strongly recommend having other informal supports in place too.

It may take us a few hours to get our remote systems up and running but after this period, you should see business as normal. We recognise these are not normal times and I would encourage you to get in touch if there’s anything at all that we can do to assist – PA employment related or not. We will do all we can.

Like everyone else, we hope the guidance to “socially distance” is not in place for too long and that you all remain safe and well during these challenging times. We will be working on other ideas to help people stay connected and supported and will hopefully have more to follow on this in due course.

Our first priority is ensuring the core services are still available and that we do everything we can to keep each of us safe and supported.

Colin Millar
Chief Executive Officer

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Real Living Wage Recognition

Living Wage partnership launched to end shortage of personal carers

A Scottish Government Minister has endorsed an initiative to address a serious shortage of carers for people who have been assessed as requiring social care support.

Jamie Hepburn, the Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills, welcomed the proposal, adding “The Scottish Government is clear that people who work in social care support provide an invaluable service and it’s absolutely right that they should be paid the real living wage.”

The Minister said the government’s commitment around the real living wage for adult social care staff was recognised by the Fair Wage Convention as an important step in addressing some of the challenges in the sector. He added: “The promotion of living wage accreditation for people employing their own carers is a great way of recognising that all social care workers should be paid the real living wage.”

The partnership between the Scottish Personal Assistant (PA) Employers Network (SPAEN) and the Workers Educational Association (WEA) will work to raise awareness amongst the PA employer network of the benefits of becoming Living Wage accredited and how this can help them to recruit and retain talented staff.

The partnership aims to provide practical support, guidance and assistance to PA employers to apply for and achieve Living Wage accreditation. Once accredited employers will be entitled to display the Living Wage Employer trademark on any associated job adverts. This accreditation is fast becoming a clear symbol of responsible employment practice among job applicants and will help PA employers secure status as employers of choice in the care sector.

Direct Payments, a means through which individuals can employ their own carers directly, was initially launched in 1998 but the number of people using this as a way of meeting their requirements continues to be very low.

A major part of the slow growth has been a dearth of available carers or PAs to meet the demand. The public perception of the role of personal carer has often been negative, with people wrongly assuming it is low paid, insecure and largely unrewarding work.

The payment of the real Living Wage (rLW) and being an rLW Accredited Employer aims to be a symbol of responsible business practice among employers, demonstrating that they are willing to go further than minimum wage levels and enabling their employees to better meet the costs of living. For employees in receipt of the rLW it is a sign that they are valued by their employers, that the work they do is important and it can be the basis of a worthwhile career.

SPAEN provides support to people who employ their own Personal Assistant whilst the WEA, via the Personal Assistants Network, supports PAs.

Offering Direct Payments, enabling people to become PA employers and the PA workforce are a vital part of national and local government’s aspirations to achieve person centred care in the community. Under the Self-Directed Support Strategy and Act, people in Scotland with assessed social care needs are offered the opportunity to receive a Direct Payment, a cash sum paid to the individual or their representative to enable them to purchase the care and support they require and desire to meet their assessed needs. This care is typically provided by PAs who support their respective employers’ in their own home or in the local community enabling eligible individuals to have more control over how, where, when and by who their assessed needs are met.

By paying the real Living Wage, it is hoped PA employers will be able to attract high quality personal assistants who can be secure in the knowledge they are receiving the market rate for their work. For the Personal Assistants themselves and those who aspire to be Personal Assistants, payment of the real Living Wage creates more and different career opportunities within the care sector and it is hoped this will also drive up awareness and recognition of the vital role PA’s play in Scotland’s social care mix.

Colin Millar, Chief Executive Officer at SPAEN, said “We’re delighted that our members and PA employers across Scotland will now be able to get the recognition they deserve as accredited living wage employers. This will help them to find, recruit and retain the very best, committed and skilled individuals and will demonstrate that private employment by Direct Payment users is a critical role in enabling people to live healthy, happy and meaningful lives within Scotland’s communities.

“Our own membership currently accounts for around £15m of social care spending each year, most of this going toward wages for PA’s delivering person-centred, flexible and vital support that enables people to continue living in their own homes or communities. For these committed employers to gain the same recognition as many of the bigger companies who are competing for the skills and talents of people in the community, this recognition will make a massive difference and will allow them to show that the role of a PA is extremely rewarding, both financially and in terms of job satisfaction’’.

Ray McCowan, Director of WEA Scotland, added “The WEA is delighted to be working in partnership with SPAEN and supported by the Poverty Alliance to promote the payment of the real Living Wage to all PAs across Scotland. PAs play an invaluable role in providing essential high-quality care to their service users. This work deserves to be recognised and rewarded appropriately through the payment of the real Living Wage and the WEA is proud to be working with SPAEN and the Poverty Alliance to achieve that.”

Jack Evans, Manager at Living Wage Scotland, which is hosted at the Poverty Alliance, said: “Living Wage Scotland’s mission is to tackle in-work poverty. The project is based on the twin belief that those working should not be earning less than they need to live on and that when employers choose to go beyond the minimum, they can see tangible business benefits. I welcome the announcement that SPAEN and WEA will be working in partnership to promote Living Wage accreditation throughout their networks.”

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Preparing for 2020

April 2020 will see a number of changes in U.K. employment legislation and regulation, all of which will directly affect PA employers in Scotland.  The main changes include:

  • Written contracts of employment

From 6th April 2020, every “worker” and “employee” will be entitled to a written contract of employment from day 1.  This removes and replaces the current grace period which allows a written contract to be provided within 2 months of starting and does not apply to “workers”.

This means that everyone using a Direct Payment (Option 1) will need to consider the legal status of those supporting them and determining whether they are a “worker” or an “employee” (and zero-hours contracts are included in these categories) and ensure a contract of employment is made available from day 1.  The content of the new contract of employment has also been enhanced.

Make sure your contracts of employment are compliant – call our membership team for support and advice on getting this right before you recruit

  • Holiday Pay

The “reference period” for calculating holiday pay is changing and this will also extend to people who are on “zero-hours” contracts.

Make sure your payroll team have updated their systems to ensure they use the new reference period for calculating holiday pay when this comes into force.

  • The Parental Bereavement (Leave & Pay) Act 2018

It is anticipated this will come into effect in April 2020 and will lay out the rights of parents who suffer the loss of a child.

Contact our membership team for more information on when this new right applies.

Speaking about the changes, SPAEN CEO, Colin Millar said,  “these are important and welcome changes to the rights of employees and workers but as always, these changes could have a disproportionate affect on people employing their own carers through a Direct Payment as they don’t have access to the same supports and services as many organisations and companies.

Simple changes in rights such as the right to a Statement of Main Terms or contract of employment from day 1 seem simple to implement but these changes need to be viewed in the context of social work systems.  Our experience at SPAEN is that people are often in post and delivering care and support long before the Direct Payment money has been made available, a PVG or other safe recruitment checks have been undertaken and a statement of main terms or contract of employment has even been thought about.

   It is more critical than ever, especially with more changes on the horizon as the U.K. leaves the E.U. where much of the employment legislation and regulation is derived from, that people wishing to exercise their right to Option 1 have sufficient, professional support in place.”

Need help:  SPAEN offers a range of independent, practical supports and services for PA Employers or people wishing to use a Direct Payment (Option 1).  Give our Support Services a call on 01698 250280 or drop us an e-mail to info@spaen.co.uk and find out how we can help.