MP calls for end to pay ‘scandal’ involving care workers

By The Press Association5th November 2014News EnglandNews England, Pay, Pay and Conditions, Workforce

Too many care workers are being “treated shabbily” in a sector where the zero hours culture is “deeply entrenched”, a Labour MP has warned.

Andrew Smith branded it a “scandal” that the national minimum wage was not being enforced and called on the Government to make ending illegally low pay for care workers a key priority.

The Oxford East MP said recognition of the role of care workers needed to be reflected in action to improve their status, pay and training, nurturing good providers and driving out rogue operators.

Speaking during his Westminster Hall debate on care workers, he said: “They do some of the most vital jobs in our country, they go unsupervised into the homes of the most frail, make sure they are taking the right drugs, help them with washing and the toilet, prepare their meals and often provide the only human warmth and companionship an elderly person will see all day.

“For all this many of them are only paid only £6 or £7 an hour, with no guaranteed work, zero hours contracts even when they don’t want them and zero respect from some employers.

“They are home care workers, the way many are treated is an utter and shameful disgrace and it’s the job of this House and the Government to do something about it.”

An investigation, he said, by HMRC of home care companies between 2011 and 2013 found that half of them were guilty of non-compliance with the national minimum wag, while this year the National Audit Office reported that up to 220,000 home care workers in England were illegally paid below the minimum wage.

He said: “Using the dodges of zero hours contracts and bogus self employment, more than half of home care companies pay workers only for the exact time they spend in clients’ homes with no pay for travel time and no travel allowance.”

An FOI request from Unison, he added, showed 93% of councils in England and Wales did not make it a contractual condition for the home care providers they commission to pay home care workers for their travel time, while only 21% of councils have asked to see document evidence about the pay of care workers employed by care contractors.”

He said: “In the face of all this evidence, it is appalling that the Government is doing so little to uphold the legal rights of home care workers, it’s indefensible that HMRC has stopped carrying out proactive investigations of national minimum wage compliance in home care despite itself having revealed the extent of the breaches.”

Mr Smith argued HMRC needed to be resourced to do a proper job in halting these breaches and called on care providers and councils commissioning them to be named and shamed when they failed to pay the minimum wage.

There should be a ban on 15 minute visits, he added, as well as sustained funding for training for staff with a scheme of accreditation which enabled cross over into the NHS. He also suggested practical steps of giving carers residents parking permits to assist with visits and the offer of a flu jab.

Mr Smith also called for better funding for social and home care, plus regulation of the social care workforce.

Former Lib Dem Care Services minister Paul Burstow said care sector had high staff turnover rates with 30% in some parts of the sector and 19-20% in the care home area.

Labour’s Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) argued there were “too many abusive” zero hours contracts and those doing some of the most important work in society were being “denied the dignity” of even the minimum wage.

He said: “It is simply wrong that people are being paid in contravention of the law and too many people are accepting this. It makes a mockery of having a national minimum wage to allow these sort of practices to continue.”

Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) said that with low pay, stressful working conditions and lack of support it was “no wonder” that many skilled care staff were leaving the sector.

She said: “If this Government wants to show that it values high quality care it needs to start holding providers to account and making sure they take their obligations to staff seriously.”

Labour’s Helen Jones (Warrington North) argued that you “cannot run a good care system on the cheap”, adding it required properly trained, properly paid and properly supervised staff.

She said: “This Government has been trying to run care on the cheap, it is running it on the backs of dedicated workers who are being treated shamefully, and it is time that that stopped.”

Shadow minister for care and older people Liz Kendall said a Labour Government would increase the fines for non-payment of the minimum wage to £50,000, champion the payment of the living wage through “make work pay” contracts and end the “exploitative use” of zero hours contracts, plus provide extra funding to support changes to community services including 5,000 more home care workers.

Minister of State for care and support Norman Lamb said Unison were right to campaign on the issue and payment below the minimum wage of workers in the sector was “completely unacceptable”.

He said: “It was this Government that decided that HMRC should do a dedicated push in this sector to rout out employers that are breaking the law in this respect.”

He said he has asked for a further “dedicated focus” on the care sector, adding: “I can assure members that I anticipate the naming of companies in the relatively near future within this sector and I totally support that, there should be no hiding places for employers that break the law in this regard.”