Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 15
15
Deferred
Instruct DWP to collect occupational data to assess Exchequer costs of low care worker pay.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Department for Work and Pensions explores collecting occupational data for benefit claimants, to better understand the cost to the Exchequer of low pay for care workers and to support the case for better pay. (Recommendation, Paragraph 87)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government defers to the independent Casey Commission's autonomy to recommend steps for supporting the adult social care sector, implying it will not directly act on the recommendation for DWP to collect occupational data on benefit claimants for care workers.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
DWP uses Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data to identify employment spells, and this data includes Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes which are used to identify the industry in which the employment spell took place. DWP is then able to link this data to internal Universal Credit (UC) data which enables the department to track which industries UC customers are in, and which industry they move into. DWP does not hold data on customers’ Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes which are used to identify the occupation an individual is working in. This means the data can give an overall indication of those claiming UC within the adult social care sector but is unable to identify the job roles in which UC customers are working within the sector. The UC system is a digital system where processing is highly automated, and therefore capturing new data on SOC codes would create an additional burden on resources and would require additional training of Jobcentre Plus staff to be able to classify occupations according to SOC codes. Without a digital solution, such as occupation data captured via HMRC’s Real Time Information (RTI) data, it will be difficult to achieve consistent role classifications.
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