Skills for Care publishes Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES) 2024 report
Skills for Care has published their latest findings from the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES).
The SC-WRES improvement programme is designed to support social care organisations to achieve anti-racist workplaces. It requires participating local authorities to report data on nine indicators which compare the experiences of people from minoritised ethnic backgrounds to white staff. The improvement programme also requires participants to develop action plans based on the findings and produce their own local authority report.
76 local authorities participated in the improvement programme in 2024. The data from the responding local authorities represents 97,900 staff: 58,600 staff working in adult social care and 39,300 in children’s social care.
The findings of the report suggest minoritised ethnic staff are significantly more likely to experience a disadvantage across most of the SC-WRES indicators compared to their white colleagues.
The data showed that staff from a Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic background were:
- less represented in the highest pay bands than their white colleagues, with just 14% in the higher pay band of ‘£70,000 and over’ compared to the ‘less than £30,000’ lower and ‘£30,000 to £69,000’ middle pay bands (18% and 22% respectively)
- 48% less likely to be appointed from shortlist than staff with a white ethnic background
- 37% more likely to enter a formal disciplinary process than staff with a white ethnic background
- 8% more likely to enter the fitness to practise process than staff from a white ethnic background
- 21% more likely to leave during the last 12 months than staff with a white ethnic background
- 45% less likely to be in senior manager roles than staff with a white ethnic background.
Oonagh Smyth, Skills for Care CEO, said:
The social care workforce is one of the most ethnically diverse in England, yet we still see such poor representation in leadership roles and in higher pay bands, as is highlighted by this latest SC-WRES report.
The SC-WRES improvement programme is a crucial step towards enabling us to address these issues and build truly equitable workplaces. The programme creates a space and framework to help have honest conversations that create meaningful change and support genuinely anti-racist workplaces.
Each year, as the number of organisations participating in the SC-WRES grows, we’re able get a clearer understanding of the inequality present in our sector. As the programme continues, we’ll see even more comprehensive action plans being developed and implemented that lead to better experiences and outcomes for people from minoritised backgrounds.
Beverley Tarka, Skills for Care Board Member, said:
The SC-WRES data is a critical source of insight for our sector that helps support evidence-based decisions, making our sector a fairer place to work.
As the latest report shows, adult and children’s social care still has a long way to go before it could be considered equal or anti-racist. People from Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic backgrounds are not only significantly less likely to be shortlisted for opportunities or receive higher salaries but are also considerably more likely to experience disciplinary and other negative processes during employment.
What I find really useful about the SC-WRES, is that it is a continuous improvement programme that encourages staff engagement, leadership action, sharing and supporting peer to peer learning and implementation of change through action plans.
Access the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES) 2024 report
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