Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will bring forward proposals to amend the statutory guidance for the Care Act 2014 to ensure that local authorities take steps to discourage the use of zero-hours contracts by the care providers they commission.

High quality, compassionate care for the most vulnerable in society can only be delivered by a well-trained, motivated and appropriately remunerated workforce. Zero-hours contracts in the care and support sector are often inconsistent with high quality services, risk continuity of support for those who need it, and in some cases may be exploitative.

However, we know that some care workers and care businesses value the flexibility that zero-hour or part-time contracts provide and, in limited circumstances, they can be appropriate.

The Government is taking action to improve working conditions for care workers, for example, working with the sector to launch the Recruitment and Retention Strategy. More widely, the new Care Act gives local authorities a core duty to promote their local markets in care and support services, with a particular focus on diversity, sustainability and quality. The Act will require local authorities to consider the impact of their own commissioning decisions on the quality of services individuals receive. Whilst local authorities do not directly employ the vast majority of care workers, they will now need to consider how to encourage an effective workforce able to deliver services to those individuals for whom they arrange care and support.

The Department has recently published statutory guidance to support the implementation of the Care Act that describes how local authorities must meet these new duties when commissioning, including assuring themselves that providers they contract with provide services through a remunerated workforce capable of delivering high quality care.