We invest £4 million into colleague pay

In April, Community Integrated Care announced a pay uplift for 5,000 of its frontline colleagues, seeing Support Workers move to £10.92 per hour in England and £11.40 per hour in Scotland.

The uplift means that our charity now pays the voluntary ‘real living wage’ recommended by the Living Wage Foundation. This follows a previous £8 million invested in our workforce since November 2021, as part of our commitment to employee pay, reward and wellbeing, as outlined in our Best Lives Possible strategy.

In addition to the sector-leading pay rise, our charity has continued to provide our bespoke benefits package to colleagues, including access to a free employee assistance programme, tailored wellbeing support and an exclusive app to make savings when shopping.

Since the launch of our charity’s first Unfair To Care campaign in 2021, we’ve campaigned for better pay and fairer conditions for care workers in our sector; raising awareness of the challenges faced by our frontline colleagues in national media and lobbying policymakers for better reward and recognition.

Jim Kane, Chief Executive Officer at Community Integrated Care, said: “Our people are our priority – and this £4 million investment represents a really bold and ambitious move for Community Integrated Care. It is a statement to our entire workforce of how much we value and appreciate everything they do, and the incredible impact that they have on the lives of the people we support.”

“However, this investment is certainly a leap of faith for our charity, at a time when we have few alternative options, and we understand why for many other social care providers, it is an impossibility. Ultimately, until central government take action and provide better financial support to Local Authorities, the sector faces a constant battle to pay its workforce what they deserve.”

“As a charity, we will continue to lobby decision-makers until our messages are heard loud and clear and sector-wide changes are made to ensure a sustainable and robust social care system for all.”

Teresa Exelby, Chief People Officer at Community Integrated Care, added: “The challenges our sector faces are ongoing – from colleagues and the people we support grappling with rising costs of living, to facing a recruitment and retention crisis that continues to grip the social care sector as a whole.”

“In our second instalment of Unfair to Care, published late last year, we presented evidence that people working in the care sector should be paid better for the work that they do. And whilst we continue campaigning to policymakers for the wide-scale investment that we so urgently need to achieve this, we know that in the meantime we must do everything we can to support our people.”

“We hope that this £4 million investment will not only make life a little bit easier for our teams during these challenging times, but also bolster our efforts in recruiting new talent into our workforce and retaining our brilliant colleagues.”

To find out more about our current vacancies, and what it’s like to work for Community Integrated Care, visit www.workincare.co.uk.