Social Services: Pay

(asked on 12th December 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that social care providers and staff are not penalised financially if local authorities decide to reduce the fees at which they commission future sleep-in shifts.


Answered by
Lord O'Shaughnessy Portrait
Lord O'Shaughnessy
This question was answered on 20th December 2018

Updated Government guidance National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage: Calculating the minimum wage was published on 8 November setting out the implications for paying workers for sleep-in shifts following the ruling by the Court of Appeal in Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake and Shannon v Rampersad. The Government sent advance notice of the publication to local government representatives. A copy of the guidance is attached.

The Government is sending a clear message that the judgment should not be used as an opportunity to make ad-hoc changes to the fees paid to providers. Commissioners and providers should be working together to determine a fair rate of pay for sleep-in shifts to fit their local labour market conditions.

The Government has given councils access to up to £3.6 billion more, dedicated for adult social care in 2018-19 and up to £3.9 billion for 2019-20. Overall, councils are able to increase spending on adult social care by 9% in real terms from 2015/16 to 2019/20. The Government encourages employers to pay more than the minimum wage wherever possible but recognises that employers’ ability to do so will depend on a range of factors.

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