Taking care to get the best carers
By Rory Coonan

Only if you are reading this article on Mars could you be unaware that the UK is short of labour. Jet pilots helping to load passengers’ luggage onto aircraft; trains cancelled because there is no-one to drive them; patients unable to see their GP because more have retired than can be trained  to replace them.  It’s an unhappy picture. Double-digit inflation has helped push up wages in some sectors as demand soars for scarce workers. (For anyone who is unemployed, there has never been a better time to get a job.)

But the cost-of-living crisis also affects people who are already in work.  As a result, some are compelled by necessity to quit poorly paid but socially valuable jobs. They can earn more elsewhere. How else are some people to meet their fuel and food bills this winter? The government’s May 2022 cash handout will not be enough.

Such is the crisis affecting the care sector. Skilled and dedicated carers have quit their jobs to work in supermarkets simply because they are paid more. Filling vacancies in care homes and other settings is by no means easy. Fewer workers are available from the European Union. Free movement to the UK has ceased. Many have gone home. Others, detecting better economic conditions in their own countries no longer have good reasons to come to Britain. Just as there is a lack of home-grown enthusiasm to pick fruit and vegetables in Norfolk fields, it appears  such jobs are not what Brits like to do themselves so long as others do them instead.

The NHS has the clout to target workers overseas to fill its 80,00 vacancies

The NHS has the financial clout to tackle its own shortages because it is under government control (the proof of this is that good news is invariably announced by ministers; the bad is left to officials). There are 80,000 NHS vacancies. A current recruitment media blitz explicitly targets nurses in India and the Philippines.

In contrast to the NHS, the non-hospital care sector (including care homes and domiciliary care) are privately financed businesses often dependant on local authority income. They are fragmented and not (except under Covid-like emergencies) subject to government direction. They compete between themselves for labour. There are no national pay scales. Few pay staff more than the minimum required by law.

These arrangements have been accepted as normal in the UK because a decade or more low inflation has seen continuous downward pressure on real wages. As a result (and owing to more liberal immigration policies under the UK’s former membership of the EU) there has generally been a sufficiency of care workers. Now that’s all changed.

What is the remedy? The government has introduced a ‘points-based’ system of Immigration which ranks applicants’ competences against a list of UK economic needs. It’s a mechanical, tick-box process.

What a difference it could make if the emphasis were switched from recruiting care ‘workers’ to identifying the high potential of individuals who wished to make a professional career caring for others, and to contributing their talents and ideas to improving care services in the UK.

Imagination is not generally associated with immigration policy

This would require imagination. But this is not a commodity generally associated with immigration policy (It is not so long ago that the government promulgated a ‘hostile environment’ for certain persons seeking to come to the UK – there is clearly a long way to go to welcome people we need.).

Part of the problem of recruitment (and of pay) seems to stem from the way we rank certain classes of activity as compared to others. We have created a false hierarchy between mechanical, repetitive but skilled activities, and more free-ranging intellectual enquiry. The former is deemed of lower value than the latter.

But carers (while they do perform some routine tasks many times) also offer a precious human quality and not simply a commodity. ‘Care’ does not merely consist of performing a series of tasks.  It is more valuable than that

As a country we don’t place a high enough value on the quality of care and on taking care

The country seems willing to pay (but barely) for carers to provide ‘personal care’ to others but not to place a sufficiently high value on the quality of care and on taking care, and on rewarding these attributes properly.

Yet we do not have to look far to demonstrate that the government does know how to make a creative change in immigration policy when it wants to.  It knows after all how to apply imagination when it has identified and prioritised certain needs.

In May 2022 Home Secretary Priti Patel launched a “high potential individuals” scheme to attract graduates from 50 selected universities to live and work in the UK for 2 or three years and bring their families with them.

To meet needs cited by the government (including ‘Cyber’, ‘Medical Science’ and ‘Technology’ but not ‘Care’) the list of qualifying institutions is unashamedly elitist. It includes Harvard, Princeton, MIT and Yale in the US and Peking university in China. Only one French institution makes the cut. All appear in the top 50 in two out of three world rankings. (Ms Patel’s own university, Keele, would not meet the standard.)

The government’s new ‘high potential individual’ policy serves two purposes. First, the country needs clever people to create high value jobs and pay tax and second (a political point) the government can show that Brussels is no longer in control of immigration.

However, while no-one should doubt the country needs brains from elite institutions in other countries to invent the future of the British economy, it also needs them to meet real needs now. The new scheme unashamedly privileges intellectual potential over the development of educated, practical and vocational talent. We need both.

Taking care to get the best carers
By Rory Coonan

Only if you are reading this article on Mars could you be unaware that the UK is short of labour. Jet pilots helping to load passengers’ luggage onto aircraft; trains cancelled because there is no-one to drive them; patients unable to see their GP because more have retired than can be trained  to replace them.  It’s an unhappy picture. Double-digit inflation has helped push up wages in some sectors as demand soars for scarce workers. (For anyone who is unemployed, there has never been a better time to get a job.)

But the cost-of-living crisis also affects people who are already in work.  As a result, some are compelled by necessity to quit poorly paid but socially valuable jobs. They can earn more elsewhere. How else are some people to meet their fuel and food bills this winter? The government’s May 2022 cash handout will not be enough.

Such is the crisis affecting the care sector. Skilled and dedicated carers have quit their jobs to work in supermarkets simply because they are paid more. Filling vacancies in care homes and other settings is by no means easy. Fewer workers are available from the European Union. Free movement to the UK has ceased. Many have gone home. Others, detecting better economic conditions in their own countries no longer have good reasons to come to Britain. Just as there is a lack of home-grown enthusiasm to pick fruit and vegetables in Norfolk fields, it appears  such jobs are not what Brits like to do themselves so long as others do them instead.

The NHS has the clout to target workers overseas to fill its 80,00 vacancies

The NHS has the financial clout to tackle its own shortages because it is under government control (the proof of this is that good news is invariably announced by ministers; the bad is left to officials). There are 80,000 NHS vacancies. A current recruitment media blitz explicitly targets nurses in India and the Philippines.

In contrast to the NHS, the non-hospital care sector (including care homes and domiciliary care) are privately financed businesses often dependant on local authority income. They are fragmented and not (except under Covid-like emergencies) subject to government direction. They compete between themselves for labour. There are no national pay scales. Few pay staff more than the minimum required by law.

These arrangements have been accepted as normal in the UK because a decade or more low inflation has seen continuous downward pressure on real wages. As a result (and owing to more liberal immigration policies under the UK’s former membership of the EU) there has generally been a sufficiency of care workers. Now that’s all changed.

What is the remedy? The government has introduced a ‘points-based’ system of Immigration which ranks applicants’ competences against a list of UK economic needs. It’s a mechanical, tick-box process.

What a difference it could make if the emphasis were switched from recruiting care ‘workers’ to identifying the high potential of individuals who wished to make a professional career caring for others, and to contributing their talents and ideas to improving care services in the UK.

Imagination is not generally associated with immigration policy

This would require imagination. But this is not a commodity generally associated with immigration policy (It is not so long ago that the government promulgated a ‘hostile environment’ for certain persons seeking to come to the UK – there is clearly a long way to go to welcome people we need.).

Part of the problem of recruitment (and of pay) seems to stem from the way we rank certain classes of activity as compared to others. We have created a false hierarchy between mechanical, repetitive but skilled activities, and more free-ranging intellectual enquiry. The former is deemed of lower value than the latter.

But carers (while they do perform some routine tasks many times) also offer a precious human quality and not simply a commodity. ‘Care’ does not merely consist of performing a series of tasks.  It is more valuable than that

As a country we don’t place a high enough value on the quality of care and on taking care

The country seems willing to pay (but barely) for carers to provide ‘personal care’ to others but not to place a sufficiently high value on the quality of care and on taking care, and on rewarding these attributes properly.

Yet we do not have to look far to demonstrate that the government does know how to make a creative change in immigration policy when it wants to.  It knows after all how to apply imagination when it has identified and prioritised certain needs.

In May 2022 Home Secretary Priti Patel launched a “high potential individuals” scheme to attract graduates from 50 selected universities to live and work in the UK for 2 or three years and bring their families with them.

To meet needs cited by the government (including ‘Cyber’, ‘Medical Science’ and ‘Technology’ but not ‘Care’) the list of qualifying institutions is unashamedly elitist. It includes Harvard, Princeton, MIT and Yale in the US and Peking university in China. Only one French institution makes the cut. All appear in the top 50 in two out of three world rankings. (Ms Patel’s own university, Keele, would not meet the standard.)

The government’s new ‘high potential individual’ policy serves two purposes. First, the country needs clever people to create high value jobs and pay tax and second (a political point) the government can show that Brussels is no longer in control of immigration.

However, while no-one should doubt the country needs brains from elite institutions in other countries to invent the future of the British economy, it also needs them to meet real needs now. The new scheme unashamedly privileges intellectual potential over the development of educated, practical and vocational talent. We need both.

Taking care to get the best carers
By Rory Coonan

Only if you are reading this article on Mars could you be unaware that the UK is short of labour. Jet pilots helping to load passengers’ luggage onto aircraft; trains cancelled because there is no-one to drive them; patients unable to see their GP because more have retired than can be trained  to replace them.  It’s an unhappy picture. Double-digit inflation has helped push up wages in some sectors as demand soars for scarce workers. (For anyone who is unemployed, there has never been a better time to get a job.)

But the cost-of-living crisis also affects people who are already in work.  As a result, some are compelled by necessity to quit poorly paid but socially valuable jobs. They can earn more elsewhere. How else are some people to meet their fuel and food bills this winter? The government’s May 2022 cash handout will not be enough.

Such is the crisis affecting the care sector. Skilled and dedicated carers have quit their jobs to work in supermarkets simply because they are paid more. Filling vacancies in care homes and other settings is by no means easy. Fewer workers are available from the European Union. Free movement to the UK has ceased. Many have gone home. Others, detecting better economic conditions in their own countries no longer have good reasons to come to Britain. Just as there is a lack of home-grown enthusiasm to pick fruit and vegetables in Norfolk fields, it appears  such jobs are not what Brits like to do themselves so long as others do them instead.

The NHS has the clout to target workers overseas to fill its 80,00 vacancies

The NHS has the financial clout to tackle its own shortages because it is under government control (the proof of this is that good news is invariably announced by ministers; the bad is left to officials). There are 80,000 NHS vacancies. A current recruitment media blitz explicitly targets nurses in India and the Philippines.

In contrast to the NHS, the non-hospital care sector (including care homes and domiciliary care) are privately financed businesses often dependant on local authority income. They are fragmented and not (except under Covid-like emergencies) subject to government direction. They compete between themselves for labour. There are no national pay scales. Few pay staff more than the minimum required by law.

These arrangements have been accepted as normal in the UK because a decade or more low inflation has seen continuous downward pressure on real wages. As a result (and owing to more liberal immigration policies under the UK’s former membership of the EU) there has generally been a sufficiency of care workers. Now that’s all changed.

What is the remedy? The government has introduced a ‘points-based’ system of Immigration which ranks applicants’ competences against a list of UK economic needs. It’s a mechanical, tick-box process.

What a difference it could make if the emphasis were switched from recruiting care ‘workers’ to identifying the high potential of individuals who wished to make a professional career caring for others, and to contributing their talents and ideas to improving care services in the UK.

Imagination is not generally associated with immigration policy

This would require imagination. But this is not a commodity generally associated with immigration policy (It is not so long ago that the government promulgated a ‘hostile environment’ for certain persons seeking to come to the UK – there is clearly a long way to go to welcome people we need.).

Part of the problem of recruitment (and of pay) seems to stem from the way we rank certain classes of activity as compared to others. We have created a false hierarchy between mechanical, repetitive but skilled activities, and more free-ranging intellectual enquiry. The former is deemed of lower value than the latter.

But carers (while they do perform some routine tasks many times) also offer a precious human quality and not simply a commodity. ‘Care’ does not merely consist of performing a series of tasks.  It is more valuable than that

As a country we don’t place a high enough value on the quality of care and on taking care

The country seems willing to pay (but barely) for carers to provide ‘personal care’ to others but not to place a sufficiently high value on the quality of care and on taking care, and on rewarding these attributes properly.

Yet we do not have to look far to demonstrate that the government does know how to make a creative change in immigration policy when it wants to.  It knows after all how to apply imagination when it has identified and prioritised certain needs.

In May 2022 Home Secretary Priti Patel launched a “high potential individuals” scheme to attract graduates from 50 selected universities to live and work in the UK for 2 or three years and bring their families with them.

To meet needs cited by the government (including ‘Cyber’, ‘Medical Science’ and ‘Technology’ but not ‘Care’) the list of qualifying institutions is unashamedly elitist. It includes Harvard, Princeton, MIT and Yale in the US and Peking university in China. Only one French institution makes the cut. All appear in the top 50 in two out of three world rankings. (Ms Patel’s own university, Keele, would not meet the standard.)

The government’s new ‘high potential individual’ policy serves two purposes. First, the country needs clever people to create high value jobs and pay tax and second (a political point) the government can show that Brussels is no longer in control of immigration.

However, while no-one should doubt the country needs brains from elite institutions in other countries to invent the future of the British economy, it also needs them to meet real needs now. The new scheme unashamedly privileges intellectual potential over the development of educated, practical and vocational talent. We need both.