Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that (1) home care workers receive the National Living Wage, and (2) travel time between clients for such workers is treated as working time for the purpose of the National Living Wage.

The 2015 Spending Review settlement factored in the need for local authorities to increase fees paid to providers to cover the additional costs of paying the National Living Wage to their workers. The Government has continued to monitor and listen to the social care sector, and provided an additional £2 billion of new money to social care in March 2017 to manage a number of pressures including the National Living Wage.

In the guidance to the Care Act 2014 we have set out local government’s responsibility to facilitate local markets that offer a range of high quality services, underpinned by an effective workforce. Local authorities should assure themselves and have evidence that service providers remunerate staff with a view to retain an effective workforce. Remuneration must comply with national minimum wage and national living wage legislation and this includes remuneration for any time spent travelling between appointments.