END THE “MARKETISED FAILURE” OF SOCIAL CARE WITH A PUBLICLY OWNED NATIONAL CARE SERVICE, DEMAND COMMUNISTS
THE Communist Party of Britain (CPB) has spoken out on social care policy in its campaign for the upcoming City of Edinburgh Council by-elections, taking aim at the “marketised failure” of privatised care services.
Standing candidates Richard Shillcock (Southside/Newington ward) and Peter Olech (Portobello/Craigmillar ward), the party is offering a distinct socialist alternative to the mainstream parties ahead of the vote on Thursday, 3 September 2026.
The Communists argue that Edinburgh’s current social care landscape—deeply reliant on private contractors and plagued by low wages—is failing both the vulnerable and the workforce.
The party is campaigning for a structural overhaul that mirrors the founding principles of the National Health Service (NHS): care that is fully nationalised, universally accessible, and free at the point of use.
A Local Blueprint for a National Care Service
The Communist campaign in Edinburgh centres on three localised demands designed to reverse decades of council privatisation and outsourcing:
- Insourcing Care Services: Bringing outsourced adult social care contracts back under NHS and local authority management, creating a pathway toward a unified National Care Service.
- Ending Low Pay and supporting Union Bargaining for Care Workers: Ending the exploitation of a predominantly female and ethnic minority workforce by establishing standardised council contracts. These will guarantee decent wages, fully compensated travel time, paid sleep-ins, and robust sectoral collective bargaining.
- Funding People Not War: Rejecting regressive local taxes or service cuts. The party calls for the expansion of municipal budgets by taxing the city’s vast private corporate wealth and shifting resources away from international military spending toward vital local services.
Peter Olech, Communist Party candidate for Portobello/Craigmillar, said: “Edinburgh is a city of immense, concentrated wealth, yet our social care infrastructure is crumbling and working-class communities are paying the price.
“Turning care into a profit-driven market has driven down wages for care workers and diminished the quality of life for those needing support.
“We are standing to ensure care is treated as a fundamental human right, managed for the many rather than corporate shareholders.”
Richard Shillcock, Communist Party candidate for Southside/Newington, said: “The choice facing Edinburgh voters on 3 September is simple: welfare or warfare.
“While mainstream parties manage austerity and watch our social care system fracture, we demand that Edinburgh Council takes direct responsibility for our local public services.
“We could fully fund a dignified, publicly owned care system and reverse years of devastating budget cuts if we prioritised investing in people.”
The local by-elections were triggered following the resignation of two local SNP councillors who were recently elected as MSPs to Holyrood.
The Communist Party urges voters across Southside/Newington and Portobello/Craigmillar to use their ballot papers to reject performative political tinkering and demand real, socialist structural change for Edinburgh’s working class.