Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of pay restraint in the public sector on recruitment and retention levels in the social care sector.
The Department has not made a specific assessment of the effect of the pay restraint in the public sector on recruitment and retention levels in the social care sector, but we continue to monitor the impacts of pay levels on the sector as a whole.
The vast majority (c. 90%) of staff work in the independent sector and their pay is set by their employers.
Skills for Care collect data on the adult social care workforce within the statutory local authority sector. Data shows the turnover and vacancy rates have increased fairly slowly between 2012 and 2016 of the pay cap.
However, pay is only one of the factors that may influence recruitment and retention levels within the adult social care sector.