Mike Hedges MS welcomes £1,000 payment for social care staff

Mike Hedges MS welcomes £1,000 payment for social care staff

Mike Hedges MS, Welsh Labour’s Member of the Senedd for Swansea East, has welcomed the announcement from the Welsh Labour Government that thousands of social care staff in  who are eligible for the real living wage from April will receive an additional £1,000 net payment.

Welsh Labour’s Deputy Minister for Social Services, Julie Morgan MS, has announced a further investment of £96m to support staff, on top of the £43m to introduce the real living wage.

The additional payment, which will be made to some 53,000 people, comes amid the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.

Welcoming the additional payment, Mike Hedges said:

“Welsh Labour knows the importance of investing in our NHS and social care – looking after those who look after us when we most need it.

“I’ve seen the hard work that our social care workers do – in our care homes and our communities. Day in day out they look after some of our most vulnerable people with dignity and care.

“I’m pleased that the Welsh Labour Government has been able to deliver our key election pledge of paying the real living wage to social care staff in the first year of Government, and I’m pleased that they’ll also receive an additional £1,000 payment at a time when we are facing a cost-of-living crisis.”

The £96m investment for the additional payment is on top of the £43.2m that was announced in December to ensure social care workers receive the real living wage in 2022-23. Around 53,000 social care workers will be eligible for the additional payment.

The additional payment, which is aligned to the introduction of the real living wage, will be £1,498 before deductions for tax and national insurance. Care workers on basic rate of income tax can expect to receive £1,000 after deductions.

The Welsh Government expects that the additional payment and the real living wage will be processed in people’s pay from April to June, due to the complexity of the care sector and the large number of employers involved. The additional payment will be available as a single payment or monthly instalments.

The Welsh Government is also funding a national recruitment campaign and is taking steps to professionalise the sector and improve career progression opportunities.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The additional payment is different to the £500 thank you payment for social care staff in 2020, which was available after the first wave of the pandemic and the £735 payment to health and social care staff to thank them for their commitment in 2021.

The additional payment will be available to social care staff who are eligible for the real living wage, and to some managers, as follows:

As part of the Co-operation Agreement with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Government is committed to working towards parity of recognition and reward for health and care workers as part of its shared ambition on the future of social care.