Charities want payment for staff training

Social care charities should be compensated for the costs of
training staff to meet standards demanded by the Scottish executive
and regulators, delegates heard.

Romy Langeland, chief executive of Aberlour Child Care Trust,
said councils commissioning services from charities should meet the
costs of staff training within contracts.

She said that if the Scottish executive wanted voluntary
organisations to deliver the same standards as the public sector,
there was a clear implication that staff would need more
training.

But Chris Warhurst, director of the Scottish Centre for
Employment Research at Strathclyde University, questioned whether
the Scottish executive or councils should pick up charities’
training costs.

“The voluntary sector is being paid to deliver services, not to
develop the capacity to deliver services,” he said.