Social care workers are leaving their jobs in “droves” to take up better paid work elsewhere such as delivering Amazon parcels, councillors were told.

Cambridgeshire County Councillor Richard Howitt made the statement at a full council meeting yesterday (November 9).

He urged councillors to back his motion calling for the authority to tell the government that its Social Care Plan had “failed” to deliver on its promise to “fix the crisis in social care”.

Cllr Howitt said there is also “no respite” for care providers.

He said some are facing the “grim prospect” of handing back contracts to the council due to not being able to afford to continue to provide the service.

He said: “For our valuable care workers and for our care providers it is a slap in the face that the method chosen to fund the health and social care levy, National Insurance, leaves them having to pay extra for their own jobs.”

He added that the motion did acknowledge the need for a cap on care costs, but said that this “promise has also been broken”.

Some opposition members argued that the motion was simply “Conservative bashing” and that it did not contain any suggestions to improve the situation.

Cllr Steve Count described the motion as just containing complaints about “what isn’t happening”, and that “no effort whatsoever” had been made to “suggest a way forward”.

He argued that the council’s administration was “getting excuses lined up in advance” and that they “have to find a way to manage” as it is ‘their role’.

When put to a vote a majority of councillors voted in favour of the motion, committing the county council to make representations to the government calling for an alternative plan with “genuinely secures reform and funding” to “enable” the council to meet “current pressure, growing demand and unmet need”.

The chief executive will be asked to write to the Sajid Javid MP, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to call for resources to be provided by the government to “fully compensate” the county council for additional costs arising from social care plan, which Cllr Howitt said was around £1million.