PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Care Workers: Incentives (30 November 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing a retention bonus to people employed within the social care sector as part of the covid-19 Winter Plan 2021 to 2022.

Asked by:
Darren Jones (Labour)

No assessment has been made. The vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers who ultimately set their pay and renumeration, independent of central Government. Therefore, we have no current plans to issue recruitment and retention payments directly to social care staff.

However, we recognise the challenges that providers and local authorities are currently experiencing in recruiting and retaining social care workers. To provide additional support to the sector over the winter, on 21 October we announced a new £162.5 million Workforce Recruitment and Retention Fund. We expect local authorities to work closely with care providers on how this funding is spent, which may include incentive and retention payments.

Answered by:
Gillian Keegan (Conservative)
6 December 2021