Ethical recruiting central to Skills for Care campaign

Skills for Care has launched a #RecruitRight campaign to highlight recruitment and retention challenges in social care.

Running through September, the campaign will provide information and resources looking at how to diversify approaches, how to use values-based recruitment and how to ensure it is conducted safely, fairly and ethically, including international recruitment.

Despite a fall in the vacancy rate since last year, numbers remain high. The vacancy rate is around 9.9% – or around 152,000 on any given day. The number of vacant posts has decreased by 11,000 posts since last year, when vacancies rose for the first time on record.

The campaign will include blogs and real-life insights and will run across the organisation’s website, social media, and other communications channels.

‘While it’s positive that our latest data shows vacancy rates have fallen, we know from our discussions with employers that recruitment and retention remains a key challenge,’ said Tristram Gardner, deputy chief executive of Skills for Care, the strategic workforce development and planning body for social care in England.

‘Our data also shows that there’s been a notable increase in the number of people recruited from abroad into direct care roles. While international recruitment can be one solution to recruitment challenges, it’s vital that this is done in an ethical way. This campaign will highlight the support available for employers when recruiting internationally to ensure this is the case.’

As reported last week, the effectiveness and efficiency of the health and care worker visa route is being examined as part of an inspection on how the immigration system relates to, and supports, the social care sector. Forced or compulsory labour has been seen as an ‘emerging threat’ in the care sector and is one of the top priorities for investigators at the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority.

As part of the campaign, Care Friends founder and author of Saving social care, Neil Eastwood, will be taking part in a live episode of Skills for Care’s The care exchange podcast on 28 September. For more information on the campaign click here.