Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the hourly rate of pay was which local authorities set for care providers in (a) residential care and (b) community-based care (i) as a national average and (ii) for each local authority.

The vast majority of local authority funded social care is commissioned from external providers and local authorities do not directly set rates of staff pay in these providers.

Information on the average unit cost of care commissioned by local authorities is available for 2016/17 in the attached document.

No data is collected centrally on the rates of pay paid to staff caring for local authority funded clients.