Outcome: Social care and early years services that attract, recruit and retain people with the right values to meet the needs of those who need care and support

Why it’s important

The population of Wales is increasing, including the percentage of older people, who may need care and support.

This will increase the need for a skilled social care and early years workforce.

We’re already experiencing shortages in many occupations in several services and settings.

We need to increase our efforts in how we market and promote the variety and number of opportunities available.

Our impact

We’ve further developed our national campaign and jobs portal, which is being valued and used by more providers.

Throughout the year we‘ve been using and building on the WeCare Wales brand. This has supported attraction and recruitment to the sector during this time.

We developed a WeCare Wales job portal in response to the pandemic. We wanted to make it easier for employers to advertise their job vacancies and for people to see the vacancies available in their area.

Further development of the portal has been taking place throughout the year. A campaign focused on promoting the jobs portal included TV, radio and cinema adverts.

The engagement numbers and reach of the WeCare campaign and other initiatives have been positive. However, it’s very difficult to see the impact of this work within the sector on a short-term basis.

The current competitive nature of the job market is creating challenges across all sectors. The full impact of the programme will need to be considered over the next couple of years. Any review will need to take into account other factors such as terms and conditions, which are beyond our control.

We don’t have accurate data on the numbers of people leaving the sector. We do know, however, that many providers are finding it increasingly challenging to recruit and retain their staff.

Vacancies mean those still working are facing greater demands and there is also a direct impact on people’s care.

Reports from Care Inspectorate Wales highlight staffing issues related to poor quality service provision. We work closely with them to find solutions for support providers.