GMB to campaign for better pay for private care home staff

The GMB union plans to launch a major campaign in the autumn to bring pay for staff in private sector care homes up to the same level as council-run homes.

It said the minimum wage of £10,500 that applies to frontline carers in the private sector should be increased to the £13,989 minimum salary paid to staff in council-run homes.

National officer Sharon Holder said: “You can’t expect people to provide a quality public service when you are only paying them the minimum wage.”

She admitted that private providers faced pressures such as a tightening of funding from councils, and said the government had not made any efforts to resolve the problem.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

“There needs to be recognition that privately provided care on behalf of local authorities is a public service, and therefore the workforce should be treated with the same degree of fairness as any other part of public services,” Holder said.