Workforce research at
Skills for Care
Christine Eborall
Programme Head : Research
Skills for Care
• Part of Skills for Care & Development, the
sector skills council for social care, children
and young people’s workforces in the UK.
• Mission: ‘to modernise adult social care in
England by ensuring standards and
qualifications continually adapt to meet the
changing needs of people who use care
services.’
• Includes providing ‘robust data, research and
analysis about the social care workforce.’
Main research areas
1. National Minimum Data Set for Social
Care (NMDS-SC)
2. Ad-hoc projects (mainly quantitative)
3. Regional research – mainly to support
regional activities
4. New Types of Worker / New Ways of
Working - 100 action research projects
National Minimum Data Set for
Social Care (NMDS-SC)
• A collection of standard workforce data items
• Developed by Skills for Care in partnership
with DH, former DfES, CSCI, GSCC, SCIE,
NHS NWP, LSC, LGA, CWDC and others
• Launched October 2005; online since
November 2007
• Collected from adult care-providing and –
organising establishments
• Also collected from some children’s services
• Not mandatory: carrot & stick approach
Organisational data items
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Establishment name, address etc.
CSCI registration no.
Ownership
Main & other services provided
Types of service users
Service provision capacity
Total employees and by 27 job roles
No. starting in past 12 months x 27
No. agency, bank/pool, student, volunteers x 27
No. leaving in past 12 months x 27
Reasons and destinations of leavers
Individual worker data items
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National Insurance No
Home postcode, date of birth, gender, ethnicity
Job role(s) and employment status
Contracted hours, additional hours in last week
Full-time or part-time, employment terms
Sickness in past 12 months
Gross pay (3 options: annual, monthly, hourly)
Year started work in social care
Qualifications held and working towards
Year qualifications achieved
NMDS-SC: progress to date
• 21,100 organisational and 585,000 worker records in
system
• Mainly private and voluntary sector
• 55% of CSCI-registered establishments
• Bulk Upload Tool launched April 2008 for large
employers and local authorities
• Output reports for individual establishments
(including AQAA) and for general use (e.g. local
authority profiles) at nmds-sc-online.org.uk/
research
• Datasets available
NMDS-SC  2007-8 workforce
numbers
• Estimated adult social care jobs = 1,505,000
» including 6% not directly employed, but excludes selffunders and non-social services council staff.
–
–
–
–
–
Private sector
Voluntary sector
Councils
NHS
Recipients of direct payments
805,000 (53%)
265,000 (18%)
221,000 (15%)
62,000 (4%)
152,000 (10%)
• But number of individual workers is fewer
• More part-time, short hours jobs and multiple
employers
NMDS-SC  workforce
projections
• NMDS-SC employee + capacity data enables
future demand to be translated into worker
numbers
• SfC projections based on PSSRU demand
forecasts
• 2025 jobs/workforce = 2 – 2.5 million,
depending on scenario
• PSSRU using NMDS-SC data for more
sophisticated projections
NMDS-SC  care worker pay
Care workers: median gross hourly pay (moving quarterly
average)
Care home with nursing
£7.00
£6.80
£6.60
Care home without
nursing or care only
£6.40
£6.20
£6.00
£5.80
Domiciliary care or
home care
All other services
£5.60
£5.40
£5.20
All adult services
Ju
ly
0
Au 7
g
Se 07
pt
0
O 7
ct
0
N 7
ov
D 07
ec
0
Ja 7
n
0
Fe 8
b
0
M 8
ar
Ap 08
ril
0
M 8
ay
Ju 08
ne
0
Ju 8
ly
0
Au 8
g
08
£5.00
All services including
children's
NMDS-SC  age started in
social care
Age started in Social Care sector
18
16
14
12
(%)
10
8
6
4
2
U
nd
er
18
18
-1
9
20
-2
4
25
-2
9
30
-3
4
35
-3
9
40
-4
4
45
-4
9
50
-5
4
55
-5
9
60
-6
4
65
-6
O 9
ve
r7
0
0
All Workers
Care Workers
NMDS-SC: development and
challenges
• Collection from local authorities: progressing
slowly
• Completeness & currency of response
• Change control process invoked for:
– worker migrant status
– collection from individuals employing own staff
– improve / amend qualifications information
• Collection from NHS – feasibility study
• Wales – feasibility study
Skills for Care ad hoc research
• National Survey of Care Workers (2007)
• Employment aspects and workforce
implications of Direct Payments (2008)
• Rewards & incentives (in progress)
• National Skills Academy supply &
demand study (in progress)
• Individuals employing own care &
support staff (planned)
National Survey of Care Workers
(2007)
• Conducted in 2006-7 by TNS
• Face to face interviews with a random sample
of 500 care workers (identified via general
population omnibus surveys)
• Most working in “traditional” settings
• Migrant and ethnic minority workers under-represented
• Main objective: detailed exploration of
employment conditions, work patterns and
motivations
• Full report & tabs on Skills for Care website
National Survey of Care Workers
(2007): key findings
• Very high levels of job satisfaction: 90+%
enjoy their work and feel they are making a
difference
• Flexibility and hands-on work valued
• Lack of appropriate career structure; most not seeking
promotion
• Management of work a key reason for leaving
• Positive attitudes to worker registration
• Care work not valued or understood by general public
Direct Payments workforce
(2008)
• Conducted in 2007 by IFF Research
• 526 face to face interviews with DP recipients
in 16 local authorities
• 486 PA self–completion questionnaires + 100
telephone interviews with PA sub-sample
• Main objective: find out who’s being
employed and how
• Full report on Skills for Care website
Direct Payments workforce
(2008) : key findings
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Average no. of PAs employed = 2.3
Average no. of PA jobs/PA = 1.6
1/3 of PAs new to social care
60% of recipients of direct payments have employed
people already known to them
• 1/3 of employers recruiting not previously known PAs not
checking CRB or POVA
• PA role very diverse but tailored to individual
employer  lack of career development
• External training of PAs very infrequent
•  potential new workforce, needs development
Rewards & incentives
• Research in progress by Manchester
Metropolitan University
• Main objective: examine links between terms
of employment, recruitment and retention
difficulties and outcomes for service users
• 3 stages: desk research; multivariate analysis
of NMDS-SC and CSCI inspection outcomes;
case studies
• Reporting by end 2008
• Input into employer guidance
Planned future work
• Individuals employing own care & support
staff
• Dearth of knowledge about self-funders
• Future model of care  need to understand workforce
implications
• Ongoing review of workforce research from
other sources
• What it means for employers in the sector
• Research arising from NTOW programme
www.skillsforcare.org.uk/research