Homecare Association response to Earned Settlement consultation

The Homecare Association has responded to the Home Office consultation on Earned Settlement. As well as submitting evidence via the consultation form, we submitted supplementary evidence to the Home Office for consideration.

The Earned Settlement consultation proposes extending the settlement period for careworkers to fifteen years. The rationale for this is that the Home Office expects careworkers will not be fiscal net contributors and are low skilled.

Our submission provides empirical evidence that challenges both premises: care work requires substantial skill, and low earnings result from government commissioning policy, not worker capability.

Sponsored workers are a vital part of the homecare workforce and, because many local staff are part-time, the sector’s capacity depends disproportionately on them. We argue that government purchasing practices drive volatile demand in the homecare market and lead to significant fluctuations in work availability . In combination with a visa system that requires full-time (37.5) hours from a single sponsor, this is driving non-compliance and job loss. To address this, the Government must either allow careworkers to settle; address commissioning practices to improve work stability; or allow a visa structure that enables careworkers to move roles or work multiple roles more easily. 

Careworkers undertake skilled, responsible, and often complex work that the state relies on every day. The UK Government benefits directly from this labour in the short-term through suppressed wage costs and lower public expenditure. It is therefore unreasonable for the Government to penalise careworkers in immigration decisions for low pay that government policy itself creates.

On Earned Settlement, we recommend that the Home Office:

• Does not extend settlement for existing care staff. Settlement would go a significant way in addressing the exploitation of sponsored care staff. 
• Recognise that care work is skilled work and not penalise careworkers for being ‘low -skilled’.
• The Closed Loop Injustice: The Government cannot reasonably suppress careworker pay through its purchasing power, benefit from the resulting low-cost labour, and then exclude careworkers from settlement on the grounds that their earnings fall short. This approach creates a closed loop of injustice: the state drives low wages, then uses those wages to deny careworkers security and status. That contradiction sits at the heart of the Earned Settlement proposals and demands urgent reconsideration.
• Complete a regional impact assessment of this and other immigration policies on the health and social care system to prevent localised system failure, since some parts of the country rely more on sponsored staff than others.
• Improve the way it assesses vacancies to prove that they are genuine when assigning Certificates of Sponsorship. The Homecare Association is willing to engage with UKVI and DHSC on this issue. 

The government needs a joined-up policy approach to address exploitation and work stability in the social care sector. While policy on commissioning sits outside of the Home Office’s area of responsibility, it is vital that there is consistency across government for policy to be effective. In order to address the issues that the Home Office is seeing in social care, we recommend other parts of the government:

• Legislate for fair commissioning: Introduce a statutory National Contract for Care, with sustainable fee rates calculated using an agreed method, and a legal requirement on commissioners to pay at least this rate, supported by government investment.
• Plan the workforce: Develop a credible statutory workforce plan with the sector to ensure enough careworkers are available to meet the UK's ageing population and prevent continued drift to lower-skilled but better-paid employment.
• Give clear commissioning guidance: Issue statutory directions to commissioners on when it is appropriate to commission, promote or support unregulated care, to prevent unsafe practices and a two-tier system.
• Reform commissioning practices: Work with local authorities to develop a national plan for commissioning and funding that enables the shift away from zero-hours contracts required by the Employment Rights Act. This must include:
  • Ending the ‘daily auction’ of care packages to the lowest bidder.
  • Organising care geographically, with block contracts large enough to support efficient rotas and shift -based rather than minute-by-minute payment.
  • Requiring commissioners to pay for work cancelled at short notice and to fund providers to retain staff whilst the people they support are in hospital.

You can find our submission to the consultation here and our supplementary evidence here.