Research and analysis

National Minimum Wage: impact on the domiciliary care sector. Bessa, Forde, Moore, Stuart

An evaluation of the impact of the National Minimum Wage on employee earnings and hours in the domiciliary care sector.

• From: Low Pay Commission
• Published: 9 August 2013

Documents

The National Minimum Wage, earnings and hours in the domiciliary care sector

PDF, 3.32 MB, 90 pages

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Details

This study examines:

• the extent to which the National Minimum Wage has become the benchmark for hourly pay in domiciliary care
• the changes in pay and hours during a period in which domiciliary care has been increasingly outsourced to the independent sector (and the pressure upon contracts has increased)
• changes to the earnings and working arrangements (including increased reliance on zero-hours contracts) of domiciliary workers
• the impact of the contracting process on paid induction, NVQ training, accreditation and supervision, workforce composition and the ratio of senior care workers to care workers

The analysis is based on 265,683 records for adult domiciliary care workers contained in the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) for England between 2008 and 2012. These records are supported by 5 case studies of local authorities highlighting the arrangements for the commissioning of domiciliary care.

Published 9 August 2013