Home First is the reablement service provided by Herefordshire Council. Staff within the service are employed on either Herefordshire Council or Hoople terms and conditions. As a consequence there is a disparity in the salaries paid for identical roles depending on whether the staff member is on a council or Hoople contract with some staff on Hoople contracts receiving a lower hourly rate of pay.

The purpose of this decision is to support fair pay by increasing the funding to Hoople to enable a wage increase for Reablement Workers (RW) and Assessment and Review officers (ARO). This will bring the hourly rate of pay into line with RW’s and ARO’s who are employed by Herefordshire Council.

A portion of the additional funding will be used by Hoople Care to have a recruitment drive for the Home First service, which currently has a significant number of staff vacancies. The correction of the current wage disparity will improve staff retention rates.