Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the adequacy of care provided by care agencies to vulnerable people.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have understood that the term care agencies refers to employment agencies. Care providers are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) where they carry out a regulated activity, as described in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. However, employment agencies do not usually carry out regulated activity and as such do not typically need to be registered.
Providers such as care homes and those providing domiciliary care do typically carry out regulated activity and therefore are registered with the CQC. The CQC requires all health and social care providers registered with them to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent, and experienced staff, including both registered and unregistered professionals. This requirement applies where that provider chooses to recruit staff via employment agencies.
It is therefore the responsibility of the regulated provider to ensure robust and safe recruitment practices are in place, and to make sure that all staff, including agency staff, are suitably experienced, competent, and able to carry out their role.
To support providers to do so, the Department provides reimbursement towards the cost of training and qualifications through the Adult Social Care Learning and Support Scheme, backed by up to £12 million in funding this financial year.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve oversight of care agencies and to enhance enforcement powers against providers who fail to meet required care standards.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have understood that the term care agencies refers to employment agencies. Care providers are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) where they carry out a regulated activity, as described in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. However, employment agencies do not usually carry out regulated activity and as such do not typically need to be registered.
Providers such as care homes and those providing domiciliary care do typically carry out regulated activity and therefore are registered with the CQC. The CQC requires all health and social care providers registered with them to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent, and experienced staff, including both registered and unregistered professionals. This requirement applies where that provider chooses to recruit staff via employment agencies.
It is therefore the responsibility of the regulated provider to ensure robust and safe recruitment practices are in place, and to make sure that all staff, including agency staff, are suitably experienced, competent, and able to carry out their role.
To support providers to do so, the Department provides reimbursement towards the cost of training and qualifications through the Adult Social Care Learning and Support Scheme, backed by up to £12 million in funding this financial year.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to ensure that agency care workers receive appropriate and accredited training to meet the needs of vulnerable service users.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have understood that the term care agencies refers to employment agencies. Care providers are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) where they carry out a regulated activity, as described in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. However, employment agencies do not usually carry out regulated activity and as such do not typically need to be registered.
Providers such as care homes and those providing domiciliary care do typically carry out regulated activity and therefore are registered with the CQC. The CQC requires all health and social care providers registered with them to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent, and experienced staff, including both registered and unregistered professionals. This requirement applies where that provider chooses to recruit staff via employment agencies.
It is therefore the responsibility of the regulated provider to ensure robust and safe recruitment practices are in place, and to make sure that all staff, including agency staff, are suitably experienced, competent, and able to carry out their role.
To support providers to do so, the Department provides reimbursement towards the cost of training and qualifications through the Adult Social Care Learning and Support Scheme, backed by up to £12 million in funding this financial year.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to prevent care agencies from supplying staff who deliver unsupervised personal care without the required registration with the Care Quality Commission.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have understood that the term care agencies refers to employment agencies. Care providers are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) where they carry out a regulated activity, as described in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. However, employment agencies do not usually carry out regulated activity and as such do not typically need to be registered.
Providers such as care homes and those providing domiciliary care do typically carry out regulated activity and therefore are registered with the CQC. The CQC requires all health and social care providers registered with them to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent, and experienced staff, including both registered and unregistered professionals. This requirement applies where that provider chooses to recruit staff via employment agencies.
It is therefore the responsibility of the regulated provider to ensure robust and safe recruitment practices are in place, and to make sure that all staff, including agency staff, are suitably experienced, competent, and able to carry out their role.
To support providers to do so, the Department provides reimbursement towards the cost of training and qualifications through the Adult Social Care Learning and Support Scheme, backed by up to £12 million in funding this financial year.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle barriers to work for disabled people in Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Good work is good for health, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. Backed by £240 million investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched in November 2024 is driving forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity.
Disabled people are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems.
Existing measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support (IPS) in Primary Care and WorkWell. We are also rolling out Connect to Work, our supported employment programme for anyone who is disabled, has a health condition or is experiencing more complex barriers to work.
DWP is working with the NHS and Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) as part of the Get Hertfordshire Working strategic plan. DWP and the NHS co-chair the Work and Health subgroup of the plan. This group is working with local employers and key partners from the statutory, education and voluntary sectors, to support residents with health conditions to both stay in and return to work through a range of activities such as employment and skills training and providing support in managing their health conditions. The group is also developing employment pathways such as work experience, internships, and apprenticeships with partner agencies.
DEAs in the Jobcentres supporting the constituency hold in-depth Work Ability conversations that focus on strengths, suitable work options, workplace adjustments and confidence building. There is a Weekly Wednesday Job Club for Berkhamsted customers. As part of the Pathways to Work initiative DEAs work in collaboration with HCC to deliver joined up services for residents by supporting disabled people into employment through our Connect to Work programme, referrals to Employment Advisors in Talking Therapies and IPS.
We set out our plan for the Pathways to Work Guarantee in our Pathways to Work Green Paper and are building towards our guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for disabled people and people with health conditions on out of work benefits. The guarantee is backed by £1 billion a year of new, additional funding by the end of the decade. We anticipate the guarantee, once fully rolled out, will include: a support conversation to identify next steps, one-to-one caseworker support, periodic engagement, and an offer of specialist long-term work health and skills support.
The 10 Year Health Plan, published in July, builds on existing work to better integrate health with employment support and incentivise greater cross-system collaboration, recognising good work is good for health. The Plan also states the Government’s intention to break down barriers to opportunity by delivering the holistic support that people need to access and thrive in employment by ensuring a better health service for everyone, regardless of condition or service area. It outlines how the neighbourhood health service will join up support from across the work, health and skills systems to help address the multiple complex challenges that often stop people finding and staying in work.
Asked by: Beccy Cooper (Labour - Worthing West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to mitigate variations in pay and employment conditions arising from individual school negotiations with agencies under the Supply Teachers and Temporary Staffing framework.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The new iteration of the Supply Teachers and Temporary Staffing framework will remove excessive agency mark-ups through a cap on agency fees.
It will not affect pay for supply teachers employed through agencies. This will continue to be set by agencies in the first 12 weeks of an assignment, and supply teachers are free to register with multiple agencies to find the best pay and conditions to meet their own circumstances. The Agency Worker Regulations provides that all workers on assignments exceeding 12 weeks are paid on equal terms as permanent staff after the 12th week.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to help improve transparency of information for job applicants.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
We are not making the suggested assessment.
There are robust transparency rules for Employment Agencies and Businesses which are state enforced by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate.
Where recruitment is conducted directly by an employer the Common law & Misrepresentation Act 1967 provides protections, there are also other protections under the Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and strengthen by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 12 December 2025 to Question 96733, how many of the EASI inspections carried out in Scotland in 2024/25 took place (a) on farms and (b) in social care settings.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorates legal remit only extends to Employment Agencies and Businesses.
Therefore, EAS has no legal powers to conduct visits to farms or social care settings and has conducted no visits in the sectors queried.
EAS does however work closely with The Gangmasters Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) and the Care Inspectorate in Scotland, who do have the necessary powers in the queried sectors.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support employment businesses in verifying Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) eligibility in circumstances where agency workers may be registered at multiple agencies and claim SSP from each party.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Currently, agency workers can sign up to work for multiple agencies and, once they have done some work under that contract, are eligible to receive Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) from each individual employer during periods of sickness absence. This will not change. Guidance on gov.uk already provides support to employers in verifying an employee’s eligibility to SSP.
The changes being made to SSP through the Employment Rights Act ensure that people who work through employment agencies and employment businesses have comparable rights and protections to their counterparts who are directly employed. The changes to SSP are limited and do not change the existing eligibility criteria beyond removing the waiting period and Lower Earnings Limit.
The Government intends to conduct a post-implementation review (PIR) of the Employment Rights Act within five years of implementation. The impact of the measures to strengthen Statutory Sick Pay will be monitored on employers and employees alike. This can include considering the impact on workers in the agency sector.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he expects any shift from direct waged or salaried employment towards (a) self employment and (b) use of temp and staffing agencies as a result of measures in the Employment Rights Bill.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government published a comprehensive package of analysis on the impact of the Employment Rights Act and this is available here: http://www.gov.uk/guidance/employment-rights-bill-impact-assessments
This includes analysis on wider impacts, and considers potential employment effects.