Social care losing out to Lidl in recruitment battle, Edinburgh Expo told

Recruiting social care workers in some parts of Scotland has become so difficult that many services are losing out to local supermarkets, the Social Services Expo event in Edinburgh was told.

Ranald Mair, Chief Executive of Scottish Care, which represents the independent care sector, claimed a major factor was the negative portrayal of social work and social care in the media.

"Are the things that attracted us into social work still the things that would attract people into social work and social care today? It's been a positive career for me but would I encourage my children to be social workers?" he asked.

"There are parts of Scotland where recruitment is hugely difficult, particularly for the social care workforce. Services trying to recruit home care workers or people to work in care homes are competing with the local Lidl and not always winning.

"It's not just to do with the material rewards or career prospects. It's because many of the images of our profession and our range of work are quite negative in the media. People are asking, do I really want to put myself on the line in those situations?"

Mr Mair said that in recent months the Care Inspectorate had been issuing media releases about services which received ‘weak’ or ‘unsatisfactory’ grades over successive inspections. But it did the same when services achieved four ‘excellent’ gradings.

"Unfortunately since this started, all the stories we have seen are about the ones that are failing, not the home and care services that have gained top grades. The press selectively focuses on the negative."

Mr Mair said each and every worker had a "succession planning task" to find out where the next generation of social workers and social care workers was coming from.

"The skills sets people need may not be the skills sets that we developed in the 1970s and 1980s when social work was growing. But we have to hold on to the value base which has united social work and social care; the desire to make a positive difference to people's lives," he said.

"One of our challenges is to make sure that we get good, positive news stories about what social work and social care delivers day in, day out. That way we will maintain a workforce of high morale and encourage the next generation of people to come into social work to make a difference."