On almost any scale of value, the workers who care for vulnerable people at home score highly. That much is obvious. It is equally well known that their pay often does not reflect their worth. Despite repeated promises to do something about it, care sector pay at below minimum wage rates still isn’t being effectively challenged.
Social care workers, who are disproportionately women and often migrants, don’t get the minimum wage because their employers can get away without paying it. Three-quarters of them work for private sector employers. They are notoriously hard to recruit into trade unions.
The Resolution Foundation, nearing the conclusion of a two-year study, estimates that 160,000 of a workforce of 1.4m is cheated out of the minimum wage. Taking account of how many unpaid hours are worked (but not illegal deductions, such as for uniforms), the researchers calculate that the sub-minimum wage care workers are losing out to the tune of £800 each a year.
There are two ways to end this underpayment. First, HMRC should prioritise the sector. Last time it investigated, in 2013, it discovered that around half of all homecare employers were underpaying their employees. One worker was owed more than £11,000 in back pay. But HMRC only levied £112,000 in penalties, and prosecutions are highly unusual. The fine is now £20,000, but so far a mere 55 employers have been named as law-breakers. Vince Cable, the business secretary, has promised a bigger budget for inspections, but after losing a fifth of its staff since 2005, there are serious doubts about how effective HMRC can be.
Second, councils, the largest commissioners of care, need to pay attention. According to a Unison survey last October, nine out of 10 do not make it a contractual condition that travel time is paid, despite a legal ruling that it must count towards a care worker’s hours. These are the very people that a cash-strapped NHS is relying on to keep the elderly in their homes, and out of hospital. It’s not just illegal to underpay them, it’s self-defeating too.
