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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/12/mencap-fair-pay-and-unfair-comparisons
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Mencap, fair pay and unfair comparisons | Mencap, fair pay and unfair comparisons |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Your contributor who referred to Sports Direct and Mencap as both “underpaying their frontline staff for years” (Letters, 12 September) overlooked a few rather important differences. | Your contributor who referred to Sports Direct and Mencap as both “underpaying their frontline staff for years” (Letters, 12 September) overlooked a few rather important differences. |
| Essential care for people with serious learning disabilities is commissioned and paid for by local authorities, with the money coming from central government; the government changed the rules on how care staff doing overnight “sleep-in” shifts should be paid the national minimum wage in October 2016, which resulted in an instant six-year unfunded liability of £400m for the sector; Mencap is paying its hard-working staff the new rate, even though 40% of local authorities have refused to fund the increase. | Essential care for people with serious learning disabilities is commissioned and paid for by local authorities, with the money coming from central government; the government changed the rules on how care staff doing overnight “sleep-in” shifts should be paid the national minimum wage in October 2016, which resulted in an instant six-year unfunded liability of £400m for the sector; Mencap is paying its hard-working staff the new rate, even though 40% of local authorities have refused to fund the increase. |
| Charities simply don’t have the money to subsidise statutory essential care. But we do care passionately about the quality of social care that is available in the UK for people with learning disabilities. Just as we care about being able to pay staff fairly. Having caused this problem, only the government can fix it. We await its decision on funding the back-pay bill.Derek LewisChairman, Royal Mencap Society | Charities simply don’t have the money to subsidise statutory essential care. But we do care passionately about the quality of social care that is available in the UK for people with learning disabilities. Just as we care about being able to pay staff fairly. Having caused this problem, only the government can fix it. We await its decision on funding the back-pay bill.Derek LewisChairman, Royal Mencap Society |
| • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com | • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |
| • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters | • Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters |
| Minimum wage | Minimum wage |
| Charities | Charities |
| Sports Direct International | Sports Direct International |
| Retail industry | Retail industry |
| Learning disability | Learning disability |
| Disability | Disability |
| letters | letters |
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