Written question WQ84057

We have recently invested over £80m in a range of initiatives to support the social care system, some of which will go towards helping to ease the pressure on hospital beds and supporting care at home as well as recruiting more staff to the sector.

We are addressing long standing challenges in recruitment and retention and have committed to delivering the Real Living Wage for social care workers early in this Senedd term and continue to work with the Social Care Fair Work Forum to improve employment conditions that go beyond pay.

We have been running a national social care recruitment campaign to highlight the opportunities of a career in social care. We have increased funding to Social Care Wales to ensure an increase in targeted recruitment work and the roll out of online free introductory training in social care for anyone interested in finding out more.

We have provided additional funding of £10m in 2021-22 to support unpaid carers. £3m was distributed across local authorities earlier this year to support unpaid carers access respite opportunities. A further £5.5m has subsequently been allocated from our social care Winter Plan funding, for use by local authorities to provide a range of help and support to unpaid carers this winter.

Regional Partnership Boards have submitted their Winter Plans and I can see the support Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan councils are putting into third sector organisations to increase or restart their support for vulnerable people and their carers.