2 weeks Ago
A new set of fee uplifts worth nearly £10M has been approved aimed at guaranteeing workers across Bolton are paid at least the living wage. This comes after Bolton Council approved fee uplifts worth £9.41M for the adult social care sector for the year 2025-26 at a meeting earlier in March.
But council cabinet member for adults and housing Cllr Sean Fielding said that even with the living wage in place to encourage more people to work in the sector, there was still a need for migrant workers to remain viable. Cllr Fielding said: “The leader and I attended an event organised by Unison the union late last year launching the campaign for a migrant workers charter. “We heard from a number of migrant workers there who work in the social care sector in Bolton and it showed how the care sector in Bolton and across the country is dependent on migrant Labour.
The full council meeting took place at Bolton Town Hall (Image: Anthony Moss) “But even with those migrant workers we still have 131,000 vacancies nationally. “It’s quite timely that this question has come forward because the Conservative Party announced a new immigration policy which is to increase the salary threshold for people who want to come to Britain to work. “This would exclude a whole number of people who we need to support the adult social care sector in Bolton and across the country when we already can’t get enough workers to fill adult social care vacancies.
" The fee uplifts were approved to help meet rising costs and changes to the care market. They will be paid for using a combination of funds from Bolton’s adult social care precept, inflationary uplifts to the council’s budget, and adult social care grants. Cllr Fielding had been addressing a full meeting of Bolton Council in answer to a question that had been put by Cllr Sawfaan Patel, of Halliwell.
ALSO READ: Campaigners call for action on 'unscrupulous employers' who 'exploit' migrant workers ALSO READ: Bolton Council workers and school support staff to vote on strike action over pay ALSO READ: Bus network operator gives staff ‘living wage’ Cllr Patel said that low levels of pay had led to high numbers of vacancies across the social care sector all over the country. He argued that paying the living wage or at least working towards paying it was “imperative” to helping to plug those gaps and keep more people working in the sector. Cllr Fielding said: “While we don’t have a huge amount of influence over that nationally what we can do here in Bolton is make sure that we are paying the real living wage.
“This is in accordance with our obligations under the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter, which this Labour administration signed up to, but the previous Conservative administration refused to commit to during their four years in charge of Bolton Council.”.
