Edinburgh's social care crisis: City tops league for spending on agency staff for care services

Edinburgh forked out over £30 million in last five years for agency workers

Edinburgh has spent more on agency workers to staff its social care services over the past five years than any other local authority in Scotland, racking up a bill of more than £30 million.

Scottish Tory care spokesman Craig Hoy blamed “savage” cuts in council funding and problems in recruiting and retaining staff and called on the Scottish Government to abandon its plans to establish a centralised National Care Service.

Since 2017/18, Edinburgh has paid out a total of £30,564,470 for agency staff to help cover vacancies in care homes, the care-at-home service and other care services. Across Scotland, spending on agency workers by local authorities for care services surged from £19,086,849 in 2017/18 to £32,412,436 in 2021/22 – a rise of more than two-thirds. Glasgow spent £19,306,703 over the five years.

Problems recruiting and retaining staff are one of the main causes of such high spending on agency workers. Picture: Getty Images.

Mr Hoy, a South of Scotland MSP based in East Lothian, said: “The SNP are presiding over a social care crisis in Scotland. Their savage funding cuts – exacerbated by John Swinney’s budget earlier this month – have crippled local councils, and now the SNP plan to impose total ministerial control, via a National Care Service. This will be a disaster for social care in Scotland.

“These staggering figures highlight the huge problem the industry has with recruitment and retention of staff, which has led to this increasing reliance on agency staff. And stakeholders are clear that a National Care Service will do nothing to address these issues. The last thing we need right now is an administrative overhaul of the system, which would only result in precious resources being taken from the frontline to employ hundreds more management staff.

“The SNP’s own estimates show that establishing a National Care Service could cost an eye-watering £1.3 billion. The Scottish Conservatives continue to oppose the SNP’s irresponsible and expensive plans, and would instead establish a Local Care Service as an effective alternative. We want every penny poured into local care provision, which would be far more responsive than a costly, centralised bureaucracy. We urge the SNP to abandon this reckless, unaffordable policy before even more money is drained away from the frontline.”

A spokesperson for the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership said its priority was to ensure the right service provision, safety, and continuity of service for those requiring care and support. “In Edinburgh, our workforce across the Capital has long been provided by contracted independent care services, in addition to in-house council roles. Like the rest of Scotland, the challenge of staff shortages, as well as growing demand and complexity, is ongoing. For council-employed roles, we are continuing to work to fill vacancies. That is our goal and we monitor this closely.

“Our contracted care providers provide various kinds of services enabling us to direct the right kind of care to the right need. This includes care homes, care at home and highly specialised care for those with learning disabilities. Many of these services are in addition to in-house services provided by the council. In very exceptional cases where there are immediate and unplanned workforce shortages in social care and care at home, that cannot be met by existing workforce planning across the council and contracted care providers, we will use agency staff.

"Agency spend equates to less than one per cent of our overall annual budget. Most importantly, agency staff provide a highly valuable role to help ensure that in circumstances where there are unplanned for staff shortages that cannot be mitigated, agency staff are there to help ensure care needs can be met.”

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