Fair Pay Agreement News: Our Response

The government is right to recognise that ‘improving adult social care workforce pay, terms and conditions, and other matters such as training and development, is long overdue’. Research in our series of ‘Unfair to Care’ reports clearly evidences this reality, and reflects the government’s own acknowledgement that ‘care staff are dedicated and skilled, yet have been underpaid and undervalued’. 

Consequently, we welcome the government’s consultation on the Fair Pay Agreement process; and the announcement of an allocation of £500m towards an agreed fair pay award in 2028. In doing so, and in advance of our considered response to the consultation, we would like to highlight three key points: 

First, our preliminary assessment is that while £500m is welcome, it is not sufficient to achieve the government’s stated goals for fair pay in the care sector. We acknowledge that the final agreement in 2028 will be subject to negotiation and will include contributions from care providers. However, analysis in our Unfair to Care reports on the cost and benefits of fair pay for care workers demonstrates that £500m falls significantly short of the level required to create parity of pay between care workers and their NHS equivalents. 

Second, and crucially, we believe that the headline figure of the government’s contribution to the Fair Pay ‘envelope’ should be its net contribution – taking into account the income it receives from the additional tax and NI (30%) that care workers will pay from any increased salary. To deliver a genuine £500m net contribution as recently announced, the government must therefore allocate approximately £750m in gross funding. Otherwise, the real contribution will shrink to just £350m once tax and NI are returned to the Treasury. 

Third, we note that the final negotiations and pay award will only take effect from 2028/29. With the government’s own analysis confirming a 25% turnover in the adult social care workforce, we strongly urge the government to fund interim uplifts in pay in 2026 and 2027. These are essential both to address immediate challenges of high levels of staff vacancies and turnover – which are already leading to insufficient and lower-quality care – and to act as stepping stones towards the Fair Pay Agreement. 

Jim Kane, CEO of charity Community Integrated Care, said: 

“We welcome the government’s consultation on a Fair Pay Agreement for care workers and will make a considered submission on the detailed proposals. However, research in our series of Unfair to Care reports suggests that the government’s £500m contribution to the FPA is too low to achieve its goal of fair pay. 

“Crucially, the government’s contribution should be an amount that is net of the additional 30% tax and NI income it will receive from care workers. To be a genuine £500m contribution by the government, the amount should be a gross figure of £750m. If not, the government’s contribution to fair pay for 1.3m care workers will amount to only £350m. 

“We also strongly urge the government to address today’s challenge of high vacancies and high turnover of staff in the care sector by funding interim uplifts in pay in 2026 and 2027 as stepping stones towards the 2028 Fair Pay Agreement.”