4 min read/Published On: January 28, 2021/702 words/

EU staff and Brexit

Now that January is in full swing and hopefully we are all looking forward to Spring and some level of normality, there is another challenge that is particular to 2021; it is in addition to all the COVID challenges and it is called Brexit.  Now, whichever way you voted, we aren’t going to get political here, but there are some facts that we felt were important to share.

So here goes…  Briefly, I shared recently that one of our customers asked us to develop a new learning module around the new “Right to Work Checks”, following the end of the Brexit Transition Period and that is being developed now.

Things are different…

Hence a bit of preparation and planning will go a long way.

First things first.  The UK now has a points based immigration system and you will need to have a sponsor licence to hire most workers from outside the UK.  If you have been hiring workers from outside the UK, to continue to do so, you will need to apply for a sponsor licence and be given a sponsor rating.  You will need a system to track any people you do employ and our partners Care Consort can support you with this.

Furthermore, the people you want to employ will need to meet the requirements for coming to work in the UK.  These are known as “Skilled Workers” and will to meet the following criteria:

They have a job offer from a licensed sponsor (see earlier)
They speak English at the required level
The job offer is at skill level RQF3 or above (equivalent to A Levels)
They will be paid at least £25,600

According to the Skills for Care State of the Workforce Report (October 2020) Care Workers do not appear in the list of “Skilled Workers” and whilst we disagree and believe that Care is a highly skilled role, we have to work with the rules that have been set.

In addition the average salary for a Care Worker is between £17k – £20k (see below), which means it is extremely unlikely that Care Workers will be able to meet the requirements stipulated.

It should be noted at this point that there is more useful info and detail about the points system in the Skills for Care Report.

So what can we do?

If recruiting staff from the EU or elsewhere in the World come with all these requirements, can we look closer to home?

I am sure you have all heard the news items recently of Airline Cabin Crew coming to work in the Social Care sector, I know I was particularly struck by the Cabin Crew Director who used to work on Concorde and now works at Sunrise Senior Living and really values the difference he is making to the lives of the people he now supports.  Let’s share these stories and reach out to the people who perhaps have not considered Care work before.

There are some amazing stories on the “Work in Social Care” facebook page including the Sheffield man who now works for one of our customers Dimensions and shares how getting a job in Social Care was life changing for him. So let’s encourage everyone to share and like accordingly so that other people in the same or similar situations can see and hear those stories.

What else?

Never has there been a more important time to keep the staff we already have!  We blogged about this last year in a series of posts finishing with “Reducing Staff Turnover” and including, “The Care Certificate is not about training” alongside, “Staff Retention” and “Induction Essentials”.

During 2020 we released a number of new courses, some of which are completely free of charge, so please do share those resources too.  However, if you have not seen our free quiz  “Do you care, Can you Care?”, please do check it out and feel free to use it.  If you need a SCORM file to add it to your LMS, just let us know.

As always we would love to hear from you, to hear your stories, has anyone found a way around the system?

Together we are stronger and together we can Celebrate Social Care.

Related Posts