On the face of it this appears to be good news, provided Labour get in and do not renege on their promises, for nothing is ever certain.
I was campaigning for at least £14, but £15 is even better, but is it?
Many organisations will be able to comply, without much bother but what about those organisations that are on restrictive incomes or uncertain incomes, for here I am relating to charities who have to bid for much of their income from ever reducing sources.
it could be that to pay £15 they would have to reduce the hours worked, so in effect the individuals would not be better or even worse if those reduced hours brought their reduced hours to be low the hours required to be eligible for certain tax credits.
Then we have the care profession, and yes, the good care workers should be on £15 or even much more, but for providers to pay that then their rates they charge for care would also have to be considerably increased and their is no mention of that. For Government controls what is paid to Local Authorities who in turn pay the care providers so they in turn pay their care workers.
For this to be achievable the total withdrawn under austerity cuts would have to be returned to Local Authorities and much much. For if the austerity cuts were to be reversed today this would only bring local authorities funding to 2010 levels, which due to the passage of time would have to be uplifted to account for inflation.
But 2010 levels even uplifted for inflation are way too insufficient to account for payments into social care, for in my view social care has never been sufficiently funded by having an underfunded social care this has a bearing on the NHS, which in itself is also underfunded, but not to the enormous scale of the underfunding of social care.
The crisis in social care is very dire and not all is down to funding, for much is also down to the lack of persons willing to enter the care profession, and this could be partly remedied by allowing persons from outside the UK to enter so they could become employed in social care, but the current Government immigration policy does not allow for this. But it appears there are to be some temporary lifting for lorry drivers and some others, but no mention of social care.
Social Care has to be part of increased funding, substantial increases of funding as well as substantial permanent changes to the immigration policy and then look at working conditions, guaranteed travel pay and sickness and holiday pay as well as unsocial hours payments.
If not social care will not survive which means neither will the NHS.
Source: Labour Members Vote In Favour Of £15 Minimum Wage | HuffPost UK
Carer Voice 