Safe staffing programme shows progress as Scotland’s care sector continues to face workforce pressures

Scotland’s Safe Staffing Programme has delivered wide-ranging support to help care providers meet new legal staffing duties, according to an independent review published by the Care Inspectorate.

The Safe Staffing Programme End of Year Report for 2025/26, independently prepared by research and consultancy firm Blake Stevenson Ltd, examines the programme’s delivery, outcomes and emerging impact during its latest year of operation.

The programme was established to support implementation of the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019, which places legal duties on health and care organisations around appropriate staffing. The legislation came into force in April 2024 and is intended to ensure services have appropriately skilled staff in sufficient numbers to provide safe and high-quality care.

For social care providers, the legislation goes beyond simply considering the number of people working on a particular shift. Its guiding principles include ensuring staffing decisions take account of the needs of people receiving care, staff wellbeing, appropriate training and qualifications and the importance of giving employees opportunities to raise concerns about staffing.

The Care Inspectorate’s Safe Staffing Programme has been working with providers, local authorities, Health and Social Care Partnerships, people who use care services and other organisations to help translate those legal requirements into practice.

Its work has included developing guidance and practical resources, providing information sessions and webinars, engaging directly with providers and supporting local and integrated authorities with their reporting responsibilities. The programme has also worked closely with the Scottish Government’s Health and Care Staffing Act implementation team.

During 2025/26, the programme continued working towards four agreed objectives, with the Care Inspectorate reporting to its board in March that progress remained on track for completion by the end of the financial year. It had also submitted a funding proposal to the Scottish Government for a further legacy year intended to consolidate learning and provide a managed transition from the programme.

The latest independent report provides an evidence-led assessment of that work and examines the programme’s contribution to implementation of the legislation across Scotland’s social care sector.

The programme is operating against a challenging workforce backdrop. Earlier official reporting on implementation of the Act found that recruitment and staffing shortages remained one of the most significant difficulties facing providers.

A Care Inspectorate survey carried out in March 2025 found that 64% of responding providers identified recruitment and wider workforce shortages as a key risk when attempting to embed the principles of the legislation into everyday practice. Providers highlighted difficulties including insufficient staffing, balancing shift coverage with staff training and development, and financial pressures.

Finding sufficient time for workforce development was another substantial concern, with 43% of surveyed providers identifying the ability to give staff appropriate time to undertake training and development as a key risk to implementing the legislation’s principles.

Those findings illustrate one of the central challenges surrounding safe staffing. Legislation can establish expectations around appropriate staffing levels, skills, training and staff wellbeing, but providers still need to recruit, retain and develop enough people to meet those requirements in practice.

There have nevertheless been encouraging signs of providers engaging with the new duties. Data included in the Scottish Government’s first ministerial annual report on the Act showed that 91.7% of registered care providers responding to the Care Inspectorate’s 2024 annual return said they were complying with the legislation. A further 4.6% were unsure and 3.7% said they were not compliant.

Those figures need to be interpreted cautiously. They were self-reported rather than independently validated, and the legislation had only been in force for nine months of the reporting period. Providers were also not tested on their understanding of the Act, meaning interpretations of what constituted compliance may have differed.

The Care Inspectorate’s work has therefore focused not only on measuring compliance but on improving understanding of what the legislation requires. Resources developed through the Safe Staffing Programme include online guidance, frequently asked questions, short guidance videos, webinars, podcasts, national events and individual and group information sessions. Training and induction materials have also been developed for Care Inspectorate staff.

The programme has increasingly worked with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships as the new reporting arrangements have developed. During 2025/26, this included engagement with senior strategic planning and performance officers following publication of the first ministerial annual report covering implementation of the Act.

Previous provider feedback has also highlighted approaches being used to support workforce wellbeing, including regular supervision and one-to-one meetings, flexible working arrangements, wellbeing initiatives, counselling and mental health support, professional development and creating environments in which staff feel able to raise concerns.

That element is important because the legislation explicitly links safe staffing with the wellbeing of the workforce delivering care. Persistent vacancies, reliance on existing staff to cover shortages and difficulties releasing employees for training can affect both the sustainability of services and the experiences of people receiving support.

The publication of the latest independent evaluation therefore comes at an important stage for Scotland’s safe staffing reforms. The legislation has moved beyond its initial introduction, and the focus is increasingly shifting towards whether its principles are becoming embedded consistently across thousands of care services.

For providers, the challenge remains considerable. Having the right people, with the right skills, available at the right time is fundamental to safe and high-quality care, but achieving that depends on a workforce that services can successfully recruit, train and retain.

The Safe Staffing Programme has been designed to help providers understand and implement those responsibilities. The longer-term test will be whether the progress identified through the programme translates into sustainable staffing arrangements and, ultimately, better experiences and outcomes for the people who rely on Scotland’s care services.

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